All-in-fiber optofluidic sensor fabricated by femtosecond laser assisted chemical etching

An all-in-fiber prototype optofluidic device was fabricated by femtosecond laser irradiation and subsequent selective chemical wet etching. Horizontal and vertical microchannels can be flexibly created into an optical fiber to form a fluidic cavity with inlets/outlets. The fluidic cavity also functions as an optical Fabry-Perot cavity in which the filled liquid can be probed. The assembly-free microdevice exhibited a fringe visibility of 20 dB and was demonstrated for measurement of the refractive index of the filling liquids. The proposed all-in-fiber optofluidic micro device is attractive for chemical and biomedical sensing because it is flexible in design, simple to fabricate, mechanically robust, and miniaturized in size.