Chalcogenide Glasses Developed for Optical Micro-sensor Devices

In the sensor field, chalcogenide glasses are well established membranes or thin film materials for potentiometric sensors which select heavy metal ions in various liquid media. Besides these potentiometric sensors, chalcogenide glasses have also specific optical characteristics such as a wide transmission window (0.4-20 µm) and which makes them easy to be used as optical fibers or in integrated optical devices for sensitive detection of chemical, biological or environmental variations. As part of this presentation, we will discuss our concerns in the past three years in the field of material sciences: chalcogenide glasses as materials of choice for optical sensor devices. We will describe the methods of chalcogenide glass synthesis and film fabrication and then, we will expound the development of optical sensors based on chalcogenide glasses.