Strong light-matter interaction in hollow-core microfiber for multiplex sensing of environmental hazards

Abstract

Hollow-core fibers with special micro-geometry have been heralded for years as a supreme medium for data transmission, quantum communications and laser power delivery, owing to their low loss in the air-guiding structure. The recent advances of non-touching hollow core anti-resonant fiber (HARF) have further minimized the loss and improved the modal properties. Here we exploit biochemical sensing performance of HARF. We address hybridization of state-of-the-art HARF with graphene oxide (GO) to achieve strong light-matter interaction and enable ultrasensitive and simultaneous quantification of multiple hazardous antibiotics in environmental samples. The GO-HARF shows a strict light confinement in the core region with 8 dB/km attenuation at 600 nm wavelength via numerical simulation. The broadband transmission (400–1000 nm) of GO-HARF allows simultaneous fluorescence signal acquisition at multiple wavelengths. The operating principle relies on detecting dose-dependent fluorescence changes in GO-HARF when an antibiotics complex is streamed through the fiber channel. Over three-orders-of-magnitude enhancement of sensitivity is achieved with the GO-HARF sensor compared with the limit of detection (LoD) of a microplate reader. GO-HARF offers a unique opportunity to measure picomolar analytes at multiplexed wavelengths in the visible spectral range, holding great potential for fast-response, ultrasensitive and low-cost biomedical analyses.