Plastic opticalfiber coated by TiO₂ using pulse laser deposition technique for sensing application

In this work, a plastic optical fiber was coated by titanium using pulse laser deposition (PLD) technique for sensing application. A 1000 μm-diameter plastic optical fiber was coated with titanium dioxide (TiO₂). An atomic force microscope (AFM), field emission scanning electron microscopy were used to verify the surface morphology and chemical composition of the coated samples. A small amount of uniform distribution of titanium on the surface of plastic optical fibers. Porous and granular structure about 20–30 nm of titanium coated was exhibiting. Also, the UV-Vis show the absorption spectra increased with increase the lasing energy and number of shots. AFM measurements indicated that, the average grain size, average roughness and thickness increased with increased lasing energy and number of shots. When the sensor was tested using a chromium chloride solution, the wavelengths shifted, reaching a maximum sensitivity of 54.38 nm/RIU for a 1000 mJ POF sensor. In order to investigate the impact of the film’s thickness, it was coated using varying laser intensity and shot counts. The sensitivity dropped as the coating thickness increased, reaching 8.76 nm/RIU, according to the results.