Reflection type optical fiber volatile organic compound sensor and system design

In recent years, fiber optical systems have found important developed so far application field in sensor technology as occurred in communication systems. In the technologies fiber optical sensors have shown an impressive performance in respect of traditional sensors with theirs advantages such as fast response, high sensitivity, electrical isolation, low signal loss in remote sensing, small size, etc.In this study, novel fiber optical sensor structures have been developed by covering the surface of multimode fiber optical ST connectors with various materials based on phthalocyanine and PVP which are sensitive to different volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Depending on the type and the amount of VOC sensed, optical Fresnel reflection and other interferometric reflections change on the sensor surface. In the first step, four different types of sensors developed were tested for in terms of sensitivity to the different VOCs. Further having positive results, the response and the sensitivity of four different types of sensors to the VOCs for different amounts were measured using a universal measurement setup. The results obtained have shown that our sensors give significant response to the various VOCs with different sensitivity and selectivity values.