Surface Modification of Multimaterial Multifunctional Fibers Enabling Biosensing Applications

During the last decades, the continuing need for faster and smaller sensors has indeed triggered the rapid growth of more sophisticated technologies. This has led to the development of new optical-based sensors, able to detect and measure different phenomena using light. Furthermore, material processing technologies and micro fabrication methods have exponentially advanced, allowing engineers and scientists to develop new and more complex sensors on optical fibers platforms; specifically attractive for life science and biomedical research. All these substantial developments have brought biosensors to a point where multifunctionality is needed, this has led to envision the "Lab-on-Fiber" concept. Which promotes the integration of different sensing components into a single platform, an optical fiber.

In this work, an integrated system with non-conventional polymer optical fibers and their further surface modification has been developed. With these different approaches, electrodes, hollow channels and plasmonic nanostructures can be incorporated into a single optical fiber-based sensor, allowing for both electrical and optical sensing with the capabilities of tuning and signal enhancement thanks to the metallic nanostructures. Different fiber substrates can be designed and modified in order to satisfy multiple requirements for a wide variety of applications.