Hollow-Micropillared Glass Fabricated on Hollow Joe Pye Weed-Inspired Tubes for Detecting Molecular Signatures

A rational design and fabrication approach is proposed for suspended multicore fibers, resulting in the creation of dual-core and triple-core suspended fibers with different diameters and one-side cladding. These fibers are tailored for near-infrared spectroscopy applications. The multicore-suspended fibers offer an amplified electromagnetic field effect due to the exposure of the core to the analyte, leading to a significant 16 dB drop in transmittance at the fingerprint absorption line of the analyte. Numerical models indicate that the suspended core with a diameter of 3.52 mu$\umu$m exhibits a superior evanescent field in the boundary between the core and the contact point with the cladding, in comparison to the tested cores with diameters of 3.99 and 12.06 mu$\umu$m. The successful fabrication of these multicore-suspended fibers represents a promising advancement toward achieving highly sensitive molecular signature detection capabilities. Optical guided wave structures, such as optical fibers and waveguides, offer promising platforms for molecular spectroscopy. Optical fibers have emerged as prominent tools for detecting low-concentration substances, owing to their user-friendly nature and compact dimensions. Here, it reports the design, fabrication and proof-of-concept demonstrations of dual-core and triple-core suspended hollow fibers for absorption spectroscopy.image