Surface plasmon resonance hydrogen sensor using an optical fibre*

Abstract

An optical fibre surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor has been developed for the detection of hydrogen leakages. A thin palladium layer deposited on the bare core of a multimode fibre was used as the transducer. In this device, modification of the SPR is due to variation in the complex permittivity of palladium in contact with gaseous hydrogen. This effect is enhanced by using selective injection of high-order modes in the fibre via a collimated beam with non-normal incidence on the input end of the fibre. Measurements of concentrations as low as 0.8% of hydrogen in pure nitrogen have been found to be possible. The response time varies between 3 s for pure hydrogen and 300 s for the lowest concentrations. Such a large range can be explained by the two different crystallographic phases of the palladium-hydrogen system. Moreover, the response of the sensor is dependent on the length of the sensing area. In preliminary experiments, it has been possible to split the sensing area in order to achieve a two-point detection device.