Photonic Crystal Fibers for Physical, Chemical and Biological Sensing

Remarkable developments and improvement have been observed in the field of optical fiberbased sensors in the last decade, for physical, chemical and biological applications. Many new sensors for specific analytes have been reported, novel sensing chemistries or transduction principles have been introduced, and applications in various fields have been realized. This boost has been pushed also by the mature fabrication technology of photonic crystal fibers whose peculiar properties well fit requirement for efficient sensing systems. Discussions on the main issues related to the use of photonic crystal fibers in biosensing applications is reported. Specific description of fiber functionalization for the detection of biologically relevant analytes is described highlighting deposition procedures of selective probes.