Design optimization of fiber optic probes for remote fluorescence spectroscopy

Fiber optic probes are designed, developed and fabricated in the laboratories for remote fluorescence spectroscopic studies in various fields such as investigation of tissues, environmental monitoring, and analysis of samples in hostile environment. Optimized probe design is very much important for efficient transport and collection of photons, which ultimately helps in quantifying resultant emission and understanding light-matter interaction. Instead of the conventional ray optics, Monte Carlo technique has been used to optimize the design of fiber optic probes, comprising only of flat tipped fibers with and without focusing lenses, for remote fluorescence measurement in three different types of target media having different optical properties. Typical probe geometry consists of one excitation fiber surrounded by a ring of collection fibers. The effects of fiber parameters like fiber diameter, numerical aperture, core-clad ratio, arrangement of collection fibers around the excitation fiber and dead space between them, and optical properties of the medium on the performance of probes have been analysed and compared with the results of previous observations, wherever the data are available. The results show a significant difference between the collected emission with and without consideration of dead space, which plays a very significant role in probe design and is dependent on the number of collection fibers in the geometry, relative dimension of collection and excitation fibers and separation between the two. Introduction of a convex lens in the probe increases the amount of fluorescence signal for a given probe arrangement.