We report on highly accurate femtosecond (fs) laser micromachining of a compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) fiber tip on a polymer optical fiber (POF). The accuracy is reflected in an unprecedented correspondence between the numerically predicted and experimentally found improvement in fluorescence pickup efficiency of a Förster resonance energy transfer-based POF glucose sensor. A Zemax model of the CPC-tipped sensor predicts an optimal improvement of a factor of 3.96 compared to the sensor with a plane-cut fiber tip. The fs laser micromachined CPC tip showed an increase of a factor of 3.5, which is only 11.6% from the predicted value. Earlier state-of-the-art fabrication of the CPC-shaped tip by fiber tapering was of so poor quality that the actual improvement was 43% lower than the predicted improvement of the ideal CPC shape.
The Compound Parabolic Concentrator (CPC) optical fiber tip shape has been proposed for intensity based fluorescent sensors working on the principle of FRET (Förster Resonance Energy Transfer). A simple numerical Zemax model has been used to optimize the CPC tip geometry for a step-index multimode polymer optical fiber for an excitation and emission wavelength of 550 nm and 650nm, respectively. The model suggests an increase of a factor of 1.6 to 4 in the collected fluorescent power for an ideal CPC tip, as compared to the plane-cut fiber tip for fiber lengths between 5 and 45mm.
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