Ultrasensitive refractive index sensing of optical microfiber couplers coated with Ti3C2 MXene

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) MXene has recently been found to play a significant role in constructing biosensing platforms due to its excellent biocompatibility, large specific surface area, and broad optical absorption. In this article, an ultra-sensitive refractive index (RI) sensor based on an optical microfiber coupler (OMC) coated with Ti3C2 MXene is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Numerical results reveal that surface modification of MXene enhances the RI sensitivity of OMC and creates a new artificial dispersion turning point (ADTP). The OMC with a dispersion turning point (DTP) at 1300 nm is fabricated using a hybrid fusion elongation-wet etching method. It has a waist width of approximately 2.46 µm. We experimentally achieved the RI sensitivity of 9.1 × 104 ± 0.42 × 104 nm/RIU using the OMC. MXene improves the sensitivity of the OMC because Ti3C2 MXene can change the effective refractive index (ERI) for both the even and odd modes, leading to the interference dips shifting closer to the DTP. The experimental results demonstrate that the RI sensitivity of the OMC coated with Ti3C2 MXene can reach -1.7 × 105 ± 0.2 × 105 nm/RIU, which shows a ∼87% sensitivity boost compared with bare OMC. The proposed sensor is expected to be used for high-sensitivity biochemical molecule detection.