Refractive index detection range adjustable liquid-core fiber optic sensor based on surface plasmon resonance and a nano-porous silica coating

A liquid-core fiber optic surface plasmon resonance sensor with an adjustable nano-porous silica coating is first presented in this paper. By adjusting the refractive index of the nano-porous silica coating, the sensor can be used in different refractive index detection ranges. A low refractive index interval of 1.33-1.34 and a high refractive index interval of 1.42-1.44 are taken as examples to be investigated. Results show that our sensor works well in these two intervals by using appropriate nano-porous silica coatings. The highest sensitivities of the low and high refractive index intervals are obtained to be 5840 nm/RIU and 5120 nm/RIU, respectively. In addition, the sensing performances and the working wavelengths can be adjusted to meet different working requirements by changing the refractive index of the nano-porous silica coating. We also take the single mode incidence cases to explain the effects of different single incident light modes on the sensing performances.