Double clad fiber probe for fluorescence spectroscopy

We report a probe using a single double clad fiber (DCF) for fluorescence spectroscopy. Bidirectional separate transmission for excitation and fluorescence light in a single fiber was implemented. A DCF coupler made by side-polished method could extract none but the collected fluorescence signals propagating in inner cladding mode, thereby diminishing the interference of silica background generated by the excitation in core mode. The experimental results show that the fluorescence spectra of biological tissues obtained using the DCF probes have much less silica background than using a standard multiple-mode fiber.