Design, manufacture and applications of fiber-optic surface plasmon resonance dip-probes

Surface Plasmon Resonance Spectroscopy (SPRS) is performed reliably and accurately with fiber-optic sensing elements. Fiber optics are also integrated into the instrumental design to reduce system cost and to increase portability, robustness and lower costs. The combination of fiber optics and low-resolution instrumentation results in a field-portable instrument capable of detecting small refractive index changes.; In this dissertation, a novel method of increasing sensor sensitivity and choosing resonance location by employing tapered sensors is presented. Tapered sensors are made of all-glass construction and are used to monitor refractive index changes in the high-temperature, high-pressure environment of a simulated hydrothermal vent.; The manufacture of SPRS fiber-optic probes is optimized for tapered and traditional straight sensors. Superior probe design results in improved reproducibility of the SPR wavelength, shelf life and durability in various solutions. The sputter vapor deposition of gold on optical fibers proves to be the most critical step, and a novel procedure for depositing thin films of chromium and gold on round optical fibers is detailed.; Chemometric multivariate data analysis is necessary to ensure accuracy and precision over the dynamic range of the sensors. Optical computations are combined with SPRS to integrate data analysis in the data collection and to eliminate post-processing. The utility of the sensor is shown with preliminary data from applications such as monitoring distillations, the self-assembling of alkanethiols and binding of myoglobin to immobilized antimyoglobin.