A low-volume microstructured optical fiber hydrogen peroxide sensor

The ability to measure the concentration of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in solution is critical for quality assessment and control in many disparate applications, including wine, aviation fuels and IVF. The objective of this research is to develop a rapid test for the hydrogen peroxide content that can be performed on very low volume samples (i.e. sub-mu L) that is relatively independent of other products within the sample. For H2O2 detection we use suspended core optical fibers to achieve a high evanescent field interaction with the fluid of interest, without the constraint of limited interaction length that is generally inherent with nanowire structures. By filling the holes of the fiber with an analyte/fluorophore solution we seek to create a quick and effective sensor that should enable detection of desired species within liquid media. By choosing a fluorophore that reacts with our target species to produce an increase in fluorescence, we can correlate observed fluorescence intensity with the concentration of the target molecule.