| 초록 |
Fiber-optic chemical sensors (FOCS) measure the activity of a chemical species through the change of optical properties. One challenge in developing FOCS is to immobilize pH sensing agent in optical fibers, which measures the hydrogen ion activity and has been used in various fields including physiology, biochemistry, clinical medicine and so on. There are three methods to immobilize of sensing agents.; (1) Absorption onto a solid substrate; (2) encapsulation (or entrapment) within a polymeric matrix; (3) covalent binding sensing agents with a support e.g. chemical bond. In the first simplest method, the sensing substrate is physically absorbed onto the support. However, the disadvantage of absorption and encapsulation method is the sensing agents leach from the support causing short lifetime. The final method is to form a covalent bond between the sensing agent and the substrate. Covalent binding of the sensing agent can minimize leaking out problem leading lifetime improvement. In our work, we used the covalent binding method to develop fiber optical pH sensor which has long life-time. |
