An optical fiber-based sensor array for the monitoring of zinc and copper ions in aqueous environments.

Copper and zinc are elements commonly used in industrial applications as aqueous solutions. Before the solutions can be discharged into civil or native waterways, waste treatment processes must be undertaken to ensure compliance with government guidelines restricting the concentration of ions discharged in solution. While currently there are methods of analysis available to monitor these solutions, each method has disadvantages, be it high costs, inaccuracy, and/or being time-consuming. In this work, a new optical fiber-based platform capable of providing fast and accurate results when performing solution analysis for these metals is described. Fluorescent compounds that exhibit a high sensitivity and selectivity for either zinc or copper have been employed for fabricating the sensors. These sensors demonstrated sub-part-per-million detection limits, 30-second response times, and the ability to analyze samples with an average error of under 10%. The inclusion of a fluorescent compound as a reference material to compensate for fluctuations from pulsed excitation sources has further increased the reliability and accuracy of each sensor. Finally, after developing sensors capable of monitoring zinc and copper individually, these sensors are combined to form a single optical fiber sensor array capable of simultaneously monitoring concentration changes in zinc and copper in aqueous environments.

Fabrication of a porous fiber cladding material using microsphere templating for improved response time with fiber optic sensor arrays.

A highly porous optical-fiber cladding was developed for evanescent-wave fiber sensors, which contains sensor molecules, maintains guiding conditions in the optical fiber, and is suitable for sensing in aqueous environments. To make the cladding material (a poly(ethylene) glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) polymer) highly porous, a microsphere templating strategy was employed. The resulting pore network increases transport of the target analyte to the sensor molecules located in the cladding, which improves the sensor response time. This was demonstrated using fluorescein-based pH sensor molecules, which were covalently attached to the cladding material. Scanning electron microscopy was used to examine the structure of the templated polymer and the large network of interconnected pores. Fluorescence measurements showed a tenfold improvement in the response time for the templated polymer and a reliable pH response over a pH range of five to nine with an estimated accuracy of 0.08 pH units.

Hole-burning spectroscopy as a probe of nano-environments and processes in biomolecules: a review.

Hole-burning spectroscopy, a high-resolution spectroscopic technique, allows details of heterogeneous nano-environments in biological systems to be obtained from broad absorption bands. Recently, this technique has been applied to proteins, nucleic acids, cells, and substructures of water to probe the electrostatic conditions created by macromolecules and the surrounding solvent. Starting with the factors that obscure the homogeneous linewidth of a chromophore within an inhomogeneously broadened absorption or emission band, we describe properties and processes in biological systems that are reflected in the measured hole spectra. The technique also lends itself to the resolution of perturbation experiments, such as temperature cycling to elucidate energy landscape barriers, applied external electric fields (Stark effect) to measure net internal electric fields, and applied hydrostatic pressure to find the volume compressibility of proteins.

Chemically stable films for combinatorial fluorosensor arrays.

Sensor arrays are useful for many purposes. Our interests include quasi-distributed intrinsic fiber optic arrays, those distributed along the length of an optical fiber. We have demonstrated an optical time-of-flight approach to distinguishing the fluorescence output of such arrays, as well as a synthesis of combinatorial libraries that takes advantage of a support of linear morphology to make numerous compounds in a simple manner without information loss in the synthesis. To unite these research areas, we needed an optical fiber cladding material that meets demanding synthetic and optical requirements. We have chosen the Meldal SPOCC polymer support as the best candidate for such a material and report here our initial results with this material.