A plasmonic fibre sensor developed by a Chinese–Canadian collaboration can provide an optical means for monitoring the state of charge of supercapacitors. The device, designed and fabricated by Jiajie Lao and co-workers from Jinan University, Carleton University and the National Research Council of Canada consists of a gold-coated optical fibre featuring a tilted fibre Bragg grating that has a surface plasmon resonance that is sensitive to local chemical changes. When the sensor is closely attached to the surface of the supercapacitor’s electrode the change in charge density and ion distribution that takes place during charging or discharging induces a change in the reflection of the plasmon resonance. In particular, during charging, the strength of the reflection at the plasmon resonance wavelength of 1,553.8 nm from the sensor is seen to slightly decrease and vice versa during discharge. These optical transmission changes can be used to infer the state of charge of the supercapacitor.
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Graydon, O. State-of-charge monitoring. Nature Photon 12, 719 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-018-0322-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-018-0322-1
