Magnetic field sensing using whispering-gallery modes in a cylindrical microresonator infiltrated with ferronematic liquid crystal

• Published in: Optics express Vol. 25; no. 11; pp. 12195 - 12202
• Main Authors: Mahmood, Aseel, Kavungal, Vishnu, Ahmed, Sudad S, Kopcansky, Peter, Zavisova, Vlasta, Farrell, Gerald, Semenova, Yuliya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 29.05.2017
• ISSN: 1094-4087; 1094-4087
• DOI: 10.1364/OE.25.012195

An all-fiber magnetic field sensor based on whispering-gallery modes (WGM) in a fiber micro-resonator infiltrated with ferronematic liquid crystal is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The cylindrical microresonator is formed by a 1 cm-long section of a photonic crystal fiber infiltrated with ferronematic materials. Both ferronematics suspensions are prepared based on the nematic liquid crystal 1-(trans-4-Hexylcyclohexyl)-4-isothiocyanatobenzene (6CHBT) doped with rod-like magnetic particles in the first case and with spherical magnetic particles in the second case. WGMs are excited in the fiber microresonator by evanescent light coupling using a tapered fiber with a micron-size diameter. The Q-factor of the microresonator determined from the experimentaly measured transmission spectrum of the tapered fiber was 1.975 × 10 . Under the influence of an applied magnetic field the WGM resonances experience spectral shift towards shorter wavelengths. The experimentally demonstrated sensitivity of the proposed sensor was -39.6 pm/mT and -37.3 pm/mT for samples infiltrated with rod like and spherical like ferromagnetic suspensions respectively for a magnetic field range (0-47) mT. Reducing the diameter of the cylindrical micro-resonator by tapering leads to enhancement of the magnetic field sensitivity up to -61.86 pm/mT and -49.88 pm/mT for samples infiltrated with rod like and spherical like ferromagnetic suspensions respectively for the magnetic field range (0-44.7) mT.