Effect of PMMA Removal Methods on Opto-Mechanical Behaviors of Optical Fiber Resonant Sensor With Graphene Diaphragm

Regarding the dependence of the treatment of removing polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) from graphene upon the prestress in the film, two typical PMMA removal methods including acetone-vaporing and high-temperature annealing were investigated based on the opto-mechanical behaviors of the developed optical fiber Fabry-Perot (F-P) resonant sensor with a 125-µm diameter and ∼10-layer-thickness graphene diaphragm. The measured resonant responses showed that the F-P sensor via annealing process exhibited the resonant frequency of 481 kHz and quality factor of 1 034 at ∼2 Pa and room temperature, which are respectively 2.5 times and 33 times larger than the acetone-treated sensor. Moreover, the former achieved a high sensitivity of 110.4 kHz/kPa in the tested range of 2 Pa–2.5 kPa, apparently superior to the sensitivity of 16.2 kHz/kPa obtained in the latter. However, the time drift of resonant frequency also mostly tended to occur in the annealed sensor, thereby shedding light on the opto-mechanical characteristics of graphene-based F-P resonant sensors, along with an optimized optical excitation and detection scheme.