Hole Drilling on Glass Optical Fibers by a Femto-second Laser

A novel optical fiber sensor has been developed for gaseous material detection by means of a femto-second laser which has ultrashort pulse and ultrahigh peak power. This sensor has attractive sensor potion consisted of drilling holes array which is machined on the glass optical fiber. Additionally, the sensor potion is coated with thin gold film. This work expects that an interaction could be induced between transmitted light through fiber core and a bottom of the drilled holes which reaches the fiber core. The interaction could induce near-field optical phenomenon excited by transmitted light through the fiber core. This scheme could make it possible to detect gaseous-material phase substances around the optical fiber. In this study, we found that localized surface plasmon (LSP) was excited by the transmitted light through the fiber core. This paper shows experiment to obtain optimum irradiation conditions and investigation for sensor principle for the development of a novel fiber sensor.