A New Approach to Organic Solvent Detection: High-Reflectivity Bragg Reflectors Based on a Gold Nanoparticle/Teflon-like Composite Material

we report on the properties of a new optical sensor element for organic solvents based on polymeric distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) which can be easily interfaced with optical fibers . The DBr is a periodic satck of alernating teflon like and gold nanoparticle /teflon.like composite layers showing high reflectivity in the optical telecommunication spectral range and sensing properties due to the peculiar absorbing properties of the composite layers . The swelling of the composite layers in presence of organic vapors causes a DBR periodicity change and this results in the shift of the high reflectivity window.