Hollow-core fiber Fabry-Perot photothermal gas sensor

A highly sensitive, compact, and low-cost trace gas sensor based on photothermal effect in a hollow-core fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) is described. The Fabry-Perot sensor is fabricated by splicing a piece of hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber (HC-PBF) to single-mode fiber pigtails at both ends. The absorption of a pump beam in the hollow core results in phase modulation of probe beam, which is detected by the FPI. Experiments with a 2 cm long HC-PBF with femtosecond laser drilled side-holes demonstrated a response time of less than 19 s and noise equivalent concentration (NEC) of 440 parts-per-billion (ppb) using a 1 s lock-in time constant, and the NEC goes down to 117 ppb (2.7×10^-7 in absorbance) by using 77 s averaging time.