Hybrid Fibers with Subwavelength-Scale Liquid Core for Highly Sensitive Sensing and Enhanced Nonlinearity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new hybrid fiber design that improves optical sensing and nonlinear effects by using a liquid core and silicon ring structure.

Contribution

The novel subwavelength-scale liquid-core hybrid fiber design offers enhanced optical sensitivity and nonlinear performance.

Findings

The LCHF achieves 56.3% power confinement in the core, improving optical sensing sensitivity.

The modal Raman gain is 23.60 m−1·W−1, twice that of nanofiber-based systems.

Abstract

Interest grows in designing silicon-on-insulator slot waveguides to trap optical fields in subwavelength-scale slots and developing their optofluidic devices. However, it is worth noting that the inherent limitations of the waveguide structures may result in high optical losses and short optical paths, which challenge the device’s performance in optofluidics. Incorporating the planar silicon-based slot waveguide concept into a silica-based hollow-core fiber can provide a perfect solution to realize an efficient optofluidic waveguide. Here, we propose a subwavelength-scale liquid-core hybrid fiber (LCHF), where the core is filled with carbon disulfide and surrounded by a silicon ring in a silica background. The waveguide properties and the Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) effect in the LCHF are investigated. The fraction of power inside the core of 56.3% allows for improved sensitivity in optical sensing, while the modal Raman gain of 23.60 m−1·W−1 is two times larger than that generated around a nanofiber with the interaction between the evanescent optical field and the surrounding Raman media benzene-methanol, which enables a significant low-threshold SRS effect. Moreover, this in-fiber structure features compactness, robustness, flexibility, ease of implementation in both trace sample consumption and reasonable liquid filling duration, as well as compatibility with optical fiber systems. The detailed analyses of the properties and utilizations of the LCHF suggest a promising in-fiber optofluidic platform, which provides a novel insight into optofluidic devices, optical sensing, nonlinear optics, etc.

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