Modeling and analysis of localized biosensing and index sensing by introducing effective phase shift in microfiber Bragg grating (μFBG)

We report a novel micro-fiber Bragg grating (μFBG) sensor that takes advantage of the degeneracy of stop-band and rapid emergence of spectral modes when an effective phase shift occurs. The phase shift can be enabled by a range of perturbations in a central segment of the grating, including monolayer immobilization of bio-molecules or change in refractive index in the surrounding, thereby constituting the possibility of a highly sensitive sensor with the merit of scalable performance. The use of μFBG ensures strong evanescent field coupling to the surrounding in order to maximize signal transduction. Simulation results indicate very favorable sensor signal characteristics such as large wavelength shift and sharp reflection dips. A general relation between the peak position within the stop-band and the amount of effective phase shift is also provided, and may generally serve as helpful guideline for FBG sensor design. A typical μFBG sensor device may detect surface protein/DNA adsorption with limit-of-detection (LOD) as low as 3.3 pg.mm?2 for surface mass density and 51.8 fg for total mass. For refractive index (RI) sensing, the LOD is 2.5*10-6 refractive index unit (RIU).