Optical fibre nanotaper sensors

This paper reviews the work carried out in the recent years on sensors which exploit optical fibre nanotapers (OFN). After a brief introduction on the morphology, fabrication and properties of OFN, this paper will review the various OFN sensors. This type of sensors are extremely compact and relatively robust, are usually unperturbed by electromagnetic interference and can be interrogated remotely. In this review sensors will be grouped in three categories according to their morphology: linear sensors, resonant sensors and tip sensors. While linear and resonant sensors exploit the fraction of power propagating in the evanescent field (outside the nanotaper physical boundary), tip sensors exploit light confined within the nanotaper to excite/detect variations within a very limited area. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.