Application of Nanotechnology to Optical Fibre Sensors: Recent Advancements and New Trends

This chapter presents an overall picture pertaining to the ‘Lab-on-FIBRE technology’ vision illustrating the main milestones set along the technological roadmap aimed to achieve as ultimate objective the development of flexible, multifunctional plug-and-play fibre-optic sensors for specific applications. It discusses main achievements in the identification of nanofabrication strategies properly working onto not conventional substrates as the case of optical fibres. In lab-on-tip (LOT) devices, the interaction between light and the parameters to be measured takes place onto the optical fibre end facet. The unique properties offered by the LOT technology pushed researchers to focus their efforts infinding effective strategies to engineer the fibre tip, by integrating functional materials and nanostructures, suitably chosen for the specific application. The chapter also presents an overview on the realized device and their general performances for biochemical sensing applications.