SERS Fiber Probe Fabricated by Femtosecond Laser with Lateral Surface Silver Coating on Micro-Fiber Tips

Abstract

We report a method to fabricate SERS fiber probe by femtosecond laser micromachining on a microfiber tip. Multimode optical fibers are tapered to outer diameter of 4 to 20 µm. Femtosecond laser pulses are used to form nanostructures on the cleaved endface of the microfiber tip. This endface is then activated by silver sputter coating. To confine the excitation and reflection signal within the tapered core of the microfiber tip, the probe is side-coated with silver plating. High quality SERS signal of Rhodamine 6G molecules is detected through back excitation and collection from a lead in fiber of up to several meters long. The small size of the SERS micro-probe is promising for intra-cellular or even single cell detection, while the back excitation and collection setup make it suitable for remote sensing applications.

Meeting Name

Single Molecule Spectroscopy and Superresolution Imaging VII (2014: Feb. 1-2, San Francisco, CA)

Department(s)

Chemistry

Second Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Coatings; Molecules; Optical Fiber Fabrication; Optical Fibers; Optical Resolving Power; Probes; Silver; Ultrafast Lasers; Ultrashort Pulses; Femtosecond Laser Micromachining; Fs-Laser; Micro-fiber; Multimode Optical Fibers; Remote Sensing Applications; Sensing; SERS; Single-cell Detection; Fibers

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

978-0819498632

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1605-7422

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2014 SPIE, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

02 Feb 2014

Link to Full Text

Share

 
COinS