Table Of ContentOPTICAL FIBER
SENSOR TECHNOLOGY
Volume 4
Optoelectronics, Imaging and Sensing Series
Series editors
Dr. A. T. Augousti, Kingston University, UK
Professor K. T. V. Grattan, City University, UK
Professor G. Parry, Imperial College, London University, UK
Optoelectronics, Imaging and Sensing brings together the best elements of two successful
series, the Optical and Quantum Electronics Series and the Sensor Physics and Technology
Series. The new series will focus on exciting new developments and applications in the
rapidly changing areas of optoelectronic sensing and imaging technology. The volumes
cover both systems and devices, and are aimed at scientists involved in research and
development as well as practising engineers. Advanced undergraduate and graduate
textbooks are also included, giving tutorial introductions that are essential for those
wishing to work in the challenging and multidisciplinary areas of optoelectronics, imaging
and sensing. This up-to-date series will include electronic products as well as conventional
books, meeting the needs of its users effectively in the most modern formats.
Titles Available:
Electromagnetic Waves
C. G. Someda
Optical Fiber Sensor Technology Volume 2
Devices and Technology
Edited by K. T. V. Grattan and
B. T. Meggitt
Optical Fiber Sensor Technology Volume 3
Applications and Systems
Edited by K. T. V. Grattan and
B. T. Meggitt
Optical and Quantum Sensor Physics and
Electronics Series Technology Series
1 Optical Fiber Sensor Technology 1 Biosensors
Edited by K. T. V. Grattan T. M. Cahn
and B. T. Meggitt 2 Fiber Optic Fluorescence
2 Vision Assistant Software Thermometry
... :K
A practical introduction1~llp,~e;)~; 1, ~;,,. T. V. Grattan and
processing and pattern classifiers '·Z. Y. Zhang
I
C. R. Allen and N. C. Yung 3 Silicon Sensors and Circuits
3 Silica-based Buried Channel F. Wolffenbuttel
Waveguides and devices
4 Ultrasonic Measurements and
F. Ladouceur
Technologies
and J. D. Love
S. Kocis and Z. Figura
4 Essentials of Optoelectronics
5 Data Acquisition for Sensor Systems
With applications
H. R. Taylor
A. Rogers
Optical Fiber
Sensor Technology
Volume 4
Chemical and Environmental Sensing
Edited by
K. T. V. Grattan
and
B. T. Meggitt
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-90-481-4031-2 ISBN 978-94-017-2484-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-2484-5
Printed on acid-free paper
AlI Rights Reserved
© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1999
Softcover reprint of the hardcover lst edition 1999
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
Contents
List of Contributors VB
Preface ix
1 'Many hands make light work'-a perspective on optical fiber from 1
communications to measurement and sensing
K. T. V. Grattan
2 Optical fiber chemical sensor systems and devices 15
B. D. MacCraith
3 Sol-gel fiber optic chemical sensors 47
M. R. Shahriari
4 Biomedical fiber optic sensors: Problems and prospects 67
R. B. Thompson
5 Fiber optic sensors in environmental monitoring 87
G. Stewart
6 Integrated optic sensors 113
J. V. Magill
7 Fiber optic luminescence thermometry 133
K. T. V. Grattan and Z. Zhang
8 Luminescent optical fibers in sensing 205
K. T. V. Grattan, Z. Y. Zhang and T. Sun
9 Liquid crystals in optical fiber sensors 249
A. T. Augousti and J. Mason
10 White light interferometric optical fiber sensing techniques 271
y. N. Ning and K. T. V. Grattan
Index 319
Contributors
Professor K. T. V. Grattan
Department of Electrical, Electronic & Information Engineering
City University
Northampton Square
London ECI V OHB
Dr Y. N. Ning
Furukawa (Europe) Technology Centre
Unit 2
Ashfields Farm Industrial Estate
Priors Court Road
Hermitage
Berkshire RG 18 9XY
Drs Z. Y. Zhang and T. Sun
Department of Electrical, Electronic & Information Engineering
City University
Northampton Square
London ECIVOHB
Dr B. D. MacCraith
School of Physical Sciences
Dublin City University
Glasnevin
Dublin 9
Ireland
Dr M. R. Shahriari
Department of Ceramic Science & Engineering
The State University of New Jersey-Rutgers
PO Box 909
Piscataway NJ 08855-0909
USA
Dr R. B. Thompson
Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
University of Maryland School of Medicine
108 North Greene Street
Baltimore
Maryland 21201
USA
V111 CONTRIBUTORS
Dr G. Stewart
Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering
University of Strathc1yde
Royal College Building
204 George Street
Glasgow G 1 lXW
Dr J. V. Magill
Department of Electronics & Electrical Engineering
University of Glasgow
University Avenue
Glasgow G 12 8QQ
Dr A. T. Augousti
School of Applied Physics
Kingston University
Penrhyn Road
Kingston upon Thames
Surrey KT12EE
Dr J. Mason
School of Applied Physics
Kingston University
Penrhyn Road
Kingston upon Thames
Surrey KT12EE
Preface
Environmental and chemical sensors in optical fiber sensor technology
The nature of the environment in which we live and work, and the precarious
state of many aspects of the natural environment, has been a major lesson for
scientists over the last few decades. Public awareness of the issues involved is
high, and often coupled with a scepticism of the ability of the scientist and
engineer to provide an adequate, or even rapid solution to the preservation of
the environment before further damage is done, and to achieve this with a mini
mum of expenditure.
Monitoring of the various aspects of the environment, whether it be external or
internal to ourselves and involving chemical, physical or biomedical parameters is
an essential process for the well-being of mankind and of the individual. Legis
lative requirements set new standards for measurement and control all around
us, which must be met by the most appropriate of the technologies available,
commensurate with the costs involved. Optical fiber sensor technology has a
major part to play in this process, both to complement existing technologies
and to promote new solutions to difficult measurement issues. The developments
in new sources and detectors covering wider ranges of the electromagnetic
spectrum, with higher sensitivity, allow the use of techniques that some time
ago would have been considered inappropriate or lacking in sufficient sensitivity.
Further, new components such as miniaturized spectrometers have opened up
small, convenient and lower-cost spectrally selective monitoring techniques
with fiber optics, which are especially valuable for monitoring the spectral
signatures of a wide range of pollutant compounds in water and air. Coupled
with new information processing methods using the ever-expanding computer
power available, better measurements of environmentally relevant physical
parameters, exploiting the inert nature of the optical fiber and integrated optics
techniques are needed. At the same time the seemingly ever-increasing demand
for better and more comprehensive measurements of and within the human
body are driving a field which continues to expand and develop.
Optical Fiber Sensor Technology Volume 4: Chemical and Environmental Sen
sors is the fourth volume in the series on Optical Fiber Sensor Technology, and
complements the preceding texts. This particular volume continues the approach
of bringing together, in a single volume, material written by well-known authors
over an international field, reflecting their high level of expertise in the subjects
they consider. This volume furthers the intention of the series to draw its
authority from the professionalism and skill of the authors, again ensuring
careful editing of the themes and subject to bring together the best material in
a single, topical volume, complemented by a wide range of up-to-date and
x PREFACE
accessible references to underpin the text itself. The aim has been for a coherent
series of discussions of topical subjects, clustered in terms of the underlying
themes, and written as a unified series over a period for a few years.
This particular volume, concentrating on optical fiber sensor applications, opens
with a perspective chapter by one of the editors on the range of developments from
fiber communications through to fiber sensors, and discusses the underlying
technological drivers which have influenced the field in the last few years.
This leads into the first main section of the text specifically on optical fiber
sensors for chemical and biomedical applications. This topical area within the
overall ambit of optical fiber sensing has been one of the most rapid to
expand, and one with the unique aspect of increasing consumer demand and
drive for effective environmental sensing, in the EU and USA in particular.
Often conventional sensor systems have failed to offer effective solutions,
prompting the developments in the fiber regime discussed. The section opens
with a discussion of new developments in optical chemical sensing (complement
ing the chapter by John Norris in the first volume on the underlying principles) by
Brian MacCraith, who is internationally recognized for his work in this area.
Another expert from the USA, Mahmoud Shahriari, has written about one of
the most promising techniques in optical chemical sensing which is the entrap
ment of active species in sol-gel matrices, and has built on his own pioneering
work in the field. Richard Thompson focuses upon his expertise in biomedical
sensor applications of fiber optics in a review of the use of fibers and the range
of developments in the subject, and George Stewart discusses the needs for,
and applications of, optical fiber sensor systems for range of environmental mon
itoring uses. The complementary field of integrated optical sensing is discussed by
Jane Magill, who focuses mainly on the applications areas of the technology and
its interface with fiber optic waveguides in optical biosensing, again a technology
strongly driven by the needs of a rapidly expanding market.
The second section of the text concentrates on the range of applications in the
physical environment, some new and some more familiar, yet all topical aspects
of the use of optical fiber sensors. Edward Zhang and Kenneth Grattan discuss in
detail developments in the field of fiber optical luminescent thermometry, which
has been strongly influenced in recent years by advances in the doped fiber tech
nology developed for fiber lasers, and which was considered in the second volume
by Nigel Langford and Byoung Y oon Kim. This leads into a further chapter by
the same group on luminescent fiber sensors, which reviews the applications and
use of doped plastic fluorescent and scintillating fibers, for example in radiation
monitoring, and glass fibers in intrinsic sensor applications. Andy Augousti and
Julian Mason then discuss one of the more unusual of optical fiber techniques in
their consideration of the use and range of liquid crystals in sensor applications.
Ya Nang Ning and Kenneth Grattan use their extensive experience from publish
ing in the area of white-light interferometry for optical fiber sensing to discuss
this specialized aspect of the subject, and reflect the wide impact of that type of
interferometry, in it various forms, upon a range of sensor applications. This type
of interferometry is extensively used for the range of measurands, both physical
PREFACE
Xl
and chemical, which can be transduced into a displacement, and monitored most
effectively with this technology.
This text in the Optical Fiber Sensor Technology series continues and comple
ments the theme of the preceding three volumes on fundamentals and principles,
devices and technology, and applications and systems, respectively. It reveals the
rapidly changing and important nature of the subject, and carries the authority of
its international base of contributors. The editors hope you will enjoy it, and that
your research and scholarship will benefit from the material in this volume and
the series overall.
