Fast Response Time Fiber Optical pH and Oxygen Sensors

While fluorescence-based fiber optic sensors for measuring both pH and oxygen concentration (O-2) are well known, current sensors are often limited by their response time and drift, which limits the use of existing fiber optic sensors of this type in wider applications, for example in physiology and other fields. Several new fiber optical sensors have been developed and optimized, with respect to key features such as tip shape and coating layer thickness. In this work, preliminary results on the performance of a suite of pH sensors with fast response times, < 3 second and oxygen sensors (O-2) with response times < 0.2 second. The sensors have been calibrated and their performance analyzed using the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation (pH) and classic Lehrer-model (O-2).