Abstract

... sensitivity compared to chemical sensors , the restriction of their complex and large scale structures necessary for light coupling, angle scanning or spectra scanning etc makes them uunsuitable for car application . Nowadays SPR sensors have not been used in automotive field.

DESCRIPTION:

Air quality sensing for automotive applications has become a hot research topic  on a worldwide scale. Currently used air quality sensors in cars are mainly chemical sensors based on ceramics e.g. SnO2, ZrO2 which have drawbacks such as low sensitivity and selectivity . Even through the Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) sensors have high sensitivity compared to chemical sensors , the restriction of their complex and large scale structures necessary for light coupling, angle scanning or spectra scanning etc makes them unsuitable for car application . Nowadays SPR sensors have not been used in automotive field.

This proposal employs the novel the Magneto-optical glass fiber for fabrication of SPR sensor to overcome the above mentioned problems of traditional   SPR sensors for automotive applications through the integration of  the  Faraday rotation effect of the Magneto-optical glass fiber and SPR effects.  By using the Faraday rotation effect of the Magneto-optical glass fiber to change the coupling angle for  exciting the SPR effect, the conventional mechanical rotation parts or spectrometer employed in currently used SPR sensors will be avoided, which will significantly reducing the dimension and complexity of the senor. By combining  the advantages of MO glasses and SPR fiber sensors, the proposed sensor system is believed to bring a great progress on automobile air quality sensing systems ( patent has been made ) .


Development stage : Proposal Under Development

European   funding   source(s) :   Nanosciences, Nanotechnology, Materials and new Production Technologies

Type of Project:   FP7 Collaborative Research

Keywords : Glass (002007007), Optical Materials (002007012)

Organisation type   : University

Organisation size : >500

Other details :   Department of Material Science and Chemical Engineering

Target partner organisation type(s)   : SME (<250 employees), Large Company, University, Research/Technology Centre

Target partner expertise sought :   - Glasses and materials preparation and characterization ;
- Glass fibre fabrication and characterization;
- Magneto-optical glass fiber fabrication and characterization
- SPR fibre sensor design and fabrication


Application domains : Transport, Materials technology