Novel Smart Materials for Optical Fiber Sensor Development

In recent years, optical fiber sensing technology has been explored extensively because of its excellent sensing performance, electromagnetic interference, and corrosion resistance. Benefitting from the development of novel smart materials and nano-processing technologies, many intelligent and high-performance optical fiber sensors have been developed and used to measure quantities such as temperature, humidity, strain, refractive index, pH value, and levels of heavy metal ions, UV light, gas, biological molecule, etc., in the fields of medicine and health sciences, fine chemicals, and environmental ecology. Smart polymers, metal, metal oxide and semiconductor materials have been used either to fabricate the optical fiber sensors or as the sensitive materials to effectively improve the sensitivity and selection performance. This improvement is achieved through modifying different fiber structures such as microfiber, nanofiber, micro/nanostructures on fiber tip, multimode interference fiber structures, and in-line optical fiber structures. Optical fiber sensors at the micro- or nanoscale have been integrated with microfluidic devices and planar photonic structures to develop all-optical chips, leading to high-speed acquisition, transmission and processing of sensing signals. Because they are encapsulated in flexible materials, optical fiber sensors will be a promising candidate for use in wearable or implantable devices. Combining the excellent properties of micro/nanofiber (ultra-high evanescent field) with novel nanomaterials (high specific surface area and catalytic activity) used in these sensors has led to the development of many excellent integrated optical sensors.

This Research Topic is aimed at publishing the latest research works devoted to both the model simulation and experimental studies on the structural design, device preparation, and sensing performance optimization of optical fiber sensors based on novel smart materials. Potential subjects covered may include the following:

• Optical fiber designs based on novel nanomaterials
• Optical fiber physical sensors (Temperature, humidity, strain, etc.), biosensors, chemical sensors, gas sensors
• Metal, metal oxide, semiconductor, and smart polymers for fabrication of optical fiber sensors
• Nanomaterials functional fiber sensors
• Microfiber sensors and sensitive materials
• Nanofiber composite sensors based on functional materials
• Optical fiber integration with microfluidic devices and planar chips
• Use of optical fiber and nonstructural materials for lab-on-a-chip technology
• Optical fiber and plasmonics sensors

Dr. Choi and Dr. Smietana hold patents related to optical fiber sensors. Dr. Li declares no competing interests with regards to the Research Topic theme.