Simulation of optical microfiber loop resonators for biochemical sensing

Abstract

Based on the basic theory of the microfiber loop resonator, we exploit the application of microfiber loop resonators in biochemical sensing. We set up a reliable theoretical model and optimize the structural parameters of microfiber loop resonators including the radius of the microrfiber, the radius of the loop and the length of the coupling region for higher sensitivity, wider dynamic measurement range, and lower detection limit. To show the convincible and realizable sensing ability we perform the simulation of sensing an extreme small variation of ambient refractive index by employing a set of experimental datas as the parameters in the expression of intensity transmission coefficient, and the detection limit reaches to a varation of ambient refractive index of 10-5 refractive index unit(RIU). This has superiority over the exsiting evanescent field-based subwavelength-diameter optical fiber refractive index sensor.