With the introduction of hollow-core fibers (HCFs), previously infeasible sensor concepts based on optically trapped microparticles inside an air-filled core of the HCF become available, enabling a high spatial resolution that is ultimately limited only by the size of the microparticle. In recent work, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and the Institute of Microwaves and Photonics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU) Erlangen-Nürnberg, have used a fluorescent microparticle as a tiny thermosensor. By measuring the temperature-dependent fluorescence lifetime of the doped particle, which is independent of any intensity fluctuations along the optical path, we repeatably and successfully determined a linear temperature dependence of the fluorescence lifetime of 1.8 µs/K.
“This experiment demonstrated a new flying particle sensing mechanism that can be combined with readily available sensor concepts for multi-parameter sensing,” explained Jasper Freitag, a Ph.D. student at FAU. “We have realized this new sensor type in an interdisciplinary collaboration between Prof. Joly’s group at MPL and our group at the Department of Electrical Engineering,” said Prof. Schmauss (FAU). He added: “In the future, we will simultaneously localize the particle with sub-mm spatial resolution to enable distributed sensing applications over long distances.”
Publication:
Jasper Freitag, Max Koeppel, Maria N. Romodina, Nicolas Y. Joly, and Bernhard Schmauss
“Flying Particle Thermosensor in Hollow-Core Fiber Based on Fluorescence Lifetime Measurements”
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics 30(6), 5600409, 2023
With the introduction of hollow-core fibers (HCFs), previously infeasible sensor concepts based on optically trapped microparticles inside an air-filled core of the HCF become available, enabling a high spatial resolution that is ultimately limited only by the size of the microparticle. In recent work, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and the Institute of Microwaves and Photonics, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU) Erlangen-Nürnberg, have used a fluorescent microparticle as a tiny thermosensor. By measuring the temperature-dependent fluorescence lifetime of the doped particle, which is independent of any intensity fluctuations along the optical path, we repeatably and successfully determined a linear temperature dependence of the fluorescence lifetime of 1.8 µs/K.
“This experiment demonstrated a new flying particle sensing mechanism that can be combined with readily available sensor concepts for multi-parameter sensing,” explained Jasper Freitag, a Ph.D. student at FAU. “We have realized this new sensor type in an interdisciplinary collaboration between Prof. Joly’s group at MPL and our group at the Department of Electrical Engineering,” said Prof. Schmauss (FAU). He added: “In the future, we will simultaneously localize the particle with sub-mm spatial resolution to enable distributed sensing applications over long distances.”
Publication:
Jasper Freitag, Max Koeppel, Maria N. Romodina, Nicolas Y. Joly, and Bernhard Schmauss
“Flying Particle Thermosensor in Hollow-Core Fiber Based on Fluorescence Lifetime Measurements”
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics 30(6), 5600409, 2023