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New optical fiber sensors for detecting leakage of vapor phase alkanes and gasoline have been studied. When exposed to these vapors, certain rubber-type polymers such as polyisoprene and polyisobutylene cause swelling and their refractive indexes decease depending on the vapor pressure of these substances. Based on this effect, the fiber-type sensor heads were fabricated by coating the swelling polymer as a cladding layer on the fiber core with slightly lower refractive index than that of cladding. When was exposed to vapor phase substances, the sensor head changed its fiber structure from leaky to guided one, and then a large change in the transmitted light intensity was observed in a wide range of the vapor pressure. The response was also found to be reversible and reproducible.
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