Solid-core photonic crystal fiber as a Raman spectroscopy platform with a silica core as an internal reference

We show that solid-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is a promising platform for evanescent-field Raman spectroscopy of low-volume analytes. The Raman peak ratio of a silica core as a background to acetonitrile solution as analyte contained in the air holes maintains a constant value despite varying laser power and fiber length in a set of measurements. The Raman signal from the silica core can be used to eliminate the need to account for the coupling losses. These results demonstrate the feasibility of quantitative measurements using PCF as a Raman platform with silica as an internal reference. In addition, integrated Raman intensity increases with the length of the PCF due to long path length of light. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.