| Label-free optical fiber chemical sensors have provoked significant research interest in recent years due to their unique advantages of small size, low cost, potential for distributed sensing, capability of in situ and remote operation, and tolerance to harsh environments. However, existing optical fiber chemical sensors lack the desired sensitivity and specificity for many applications such as chemical and biological analysis, industrial process control, environmental monitoring, and national security.;The dissertation summarizes our research efforts and results in functional integration of nanoporous zeolites with optical fiber devices for development of label-free optical fiber chemical sensors with high sensitivity and selectivity. Fundamental research has been conducted in nano-materials, micro-devices and the material-device integrations. The material research has been focused on synthesis and characterization of nanoporous zeolites for optical chemical sensing. The research in devices has led to the successful design, fabrication and demonstration of a number of fiber sensor platforms including the turn-around-point long period fiber gratings (TAP-LPFG), the singlemode-multimode- singlemode (SMS) fiber interferometers, the long period fiber grating (LPFG) assisted Michelson interferometers, and nanostructured fiber optic surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) probes. Optical fiber chemical sensors have been successfully fabricated by growing zeolite thin films on the fiber devices, and evaluated for their sensitivity, detection limit and selectivity/specificity. The encouraging results reveal that integration of nanoporous zeolite with optical fiber devices presents a promising solution for development of high performance optical chemical sensors. |
