Integrated photonic components for structural health monitoring, life-sciences and analytics

Sensing and analytics relying on integrated photonic concepts increasingly rival their electronic counterparts in many application fields and open the route towards the widespread dissemination and ultimately democratization of precision optical measurement in society. In terms of sensing, the main advantage of optical waveguide-based technologies is their ability to simultaneously act both as the sensing element/s and the communication medium, at speed of light. In addition, they are lightweight, immune to electromagnetic interference and in case of optical glass fibers they can withstand harsh environmental conditions, i.e. radiation, high temperature, etc. The multiplexing capability of optical waveguides is already in use in cross-continent telecommunication/data transmission and recently, in applications that require sensing large regions, i.e. infrastructure monitoring of bridges, buildings and aircraft, for 2D distributed monitoring of physical quantities, and for real-time multi-parameter sensing in chemical and biomedical engineering applications with both high sensitivity and specificity.

In line with these prospects, the aim of the presentation is to provide an overview on a range of photonic components that have been developed in our group over the last years for specific sensing applications. For instance, case studies of robust and highly sensitive fiber optic-based mechanisms that allow the simultaneous monitoring of parameters such as pressure, temperature and refractive index in harsh environments are presented along with concepts developed for shape sensing applications and fiber lasers-based sensors that are developed for gas detection at ultra-low concentrations. Novel fiber-enhanced textile and carbon reinforcement structures with integrated optical sensing elements as primary candidates for structural health monitoring, which plays a vital role in the maintenance and efficient operation of large civil engineering infrastructure, is also presented with a special focus on the integration of the fiber optic sensors onto the structure. Finally, our latest approach towards planar and integrated polymer-optical sensor systems that contain aptamer functionalized waveguide arrays for biomarker detection, for example, will be presented which ultimately transforms smartphones into mobile, autonomous/intelligent laboratories.