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Detection of trace tumor markers in blood/serum is essential for the early screening and prognosis of cancer diseases, which requires high sensitivity and specificity of the assays and biosensors. A variety of label-free optical fiber-based biosensors has been developed and yielded great opportunities for Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) of cancer biomarkers. The fiber biosensor, however, suffers from a compromise between the responsivity and stability of the sensing signal, which would deteriorate the sensing performance. In addition, the sophistication of sensor preparation hinders the reproduction and scale-up fabrication. To address these issues, in this study, a straightforward lasso-shaped fiber laser biosensor was proposed for the specific determination of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)-related cell adhesion molecules 5 (CEACAM5) protein in serum. Due to the ultra-narrow linewidth of the laser, a very small variation of lasing signal caused by biomolecular bonding can be clearly distinguished via high-resolution spectral analysis. The limit of detection (LOD) of the proposed biosensor could reach 9.6 ng/mL according to the buffer test. The sensing capability was further validated by a human serum-based cancer diagnosis trial, enabling great potential for clinical use. The high reproduction of fabrication allowed the mass production of the sensor and extended its utility to a broader biosensing field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report an ytterbium (Yb) doped fiber Mach Zehnder interferometer (MZI) based on the up-taper fiber structure in a fiber ring laser (FRL) cavity. Different from the traditional FRL sensing system, in which additional filters are required, the designed structure simultaneously acts as a filter, sensor and gain medium. Furthermore, thanks to the high thermal–optical coefficient of Yb doped fiber, the temperature sensitivity of 0.261 nm/°C can be achieved in the range of 10–50 °C. In addition, benefiting from the unique characteristics of the laser system itself, the designed structure has a narrower linewidth (−0.2 nm) and a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (−40 dB) than the sensor system based on a broadband light source (BBS). Meanwhile, the refractive index (RI) response and stability of the system are measured. The RI sensitivity is up to 151 nm/RIU, and the wavelength fluctuation range within two hours is less than 0.2 nm. Therefore, the designed structure is expected to play a significant role in human life safety monitoring, aircraft engine temperature monitoring, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presented a new kind of salinity and temperature dual-parameter sensor based on a fiber ring laser (FRL) with tapered side-hole fiber (SHF) embedded in a Sagnac interferometer. The sensing structure is majorly composed of tapered SHF located in the middle of SHF inside the Sagnac interferometer loop structure. The influences of the SHF's diameters of different tapered in the Sagnac interferometer loop on the FRL sensing system are studied. The presence of air holes in the SHF makes the cladding mode easier to excite, and the interaction between the cladding mode with its surroundings is enhanced, thus having higher salinity sensitivity. Besides, the unique advantages of high resolution, narrower linewidth, and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of fiber laser make the measurement results more accurate. In this experiment, the SHF with different taper diameters was made, and it was found that reducing the diameter of the taper waist diameter could further improve the salinity sensitivity. When the waist diameter was 9.70 μm, the maximum salinity sensitivity of 0.2867 nm/‰ was achieved. Temperature sensing experiments were also carried out. The maximum temperature sensitivity of the FRL sensing system was −0.3041 nm/°C at the temperature range from 20 to 30 °C. The sensor has the characteristics of easy manufacture, good selectivity, and high sensitivity, proving the feasibility of simultaneous measurement of seawater salinity and temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrated a new method for temperature measurement inside a fiber ring laser (FRL) cavity. Different from traditional FRL temperature sensing system which need additional filter working as a sensor, a micro-fiber coupler (MFC) was designed as a beam splitter, filter, and temperature sensor. In addition, isopropanol, a liquid with very high photothermal coefficient, is selectively filled in the MFC in order to improve the sensitivity of the system on temperature. In the dynamic range of 20–40 °C, we obtained a good temperature sensitivity of −1.29 nm/°C, with linear fitting up to 0.998. Benefiting from the advantages of laser sensing, the acquired laser has a 3 – dB bandwidth of less than 0.2 nm and a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of up to 40 dB. The proposed sensor has a low cost and high sensitivity, which is expected to be used in biomedical health detection, real-time monitoring of ocean temperature, and other application scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An optical fiber temperature sensor based on Mach–Zehnder interferometer and thermo-optic effect of the liquid crystal (LC) in fiber ring laser (FRL) system is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The LC is infiltrated into the core of hollow core fiber, and the resonant wavelength is more sensitive to temperature variation due to the interaction between the incident light and the cavity infiltrating liquid crystal with high thermal light coefficient. Meanwhile, the FRL system was further used to make the sensor have good performance in the case of high signal-to-noise ratio (∼35 dB), narrow half-height width (FWHM = 0.15 nm), and high sensitivity in the temperature range from 20 °C to 50 °C, with the maximum sensitivity of 1.318 nm/°C. As far as we know, in the FRL system, the liquid crystal material has a better temperature sensing performance than the previous fiber. Nevertheless, the system has the advantages of good repeatability, low cost, simple production, small volume, high sensitivity. In marine microbial culture and detection, it is necessary to carry out high sensitivity measurement within a small temperature variation range. This reliable and excellent temperature performance has a potential application prospect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate a highly sensitive and practical fiber-based temperature sensor system. The sensor is constructed based on a fiber ring laser (FRL) as well as a side-polished fiber filled with isopropanol. The laser cavity of the sensing part fiber is polished by the wheel fiber polishing system with residual thickness (RT) is selected to detect the temperature in the FRL. Thanks to the high thermo-optic coefficient of isopropanol, the sensitivity of the proposed temperature sensor could be effectively improved by filling isopropanol in the cost-less side polished single mode fiber. Refractive index (RI) of isopropanol changes with the surrounding temperature variation allowing high-sensitivity temperature sensing. Experimental results demonstrate that the side polished fiber can efficiently excite high-order cladding modes which enhance the modular interference increase the interaction between the evanescent wave and the isopropanol. Besides, the results show that the sensitivity can be as high as 2 nm/°C in the temperature range of 25–35 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate a new concept for an all-fiber inclinometer based on a tapered fiber Bragg grating (tFBG) in a fiber ring laser (FRL) with the capability of measuring the tilt angle and temperature simultaneously. The sensor performance is analyzed theoretically and investigated experimentally. The dependence of tilt angle on the spectral response in variable temperature conditions was measured. Two inclinometers with different lengths have been fabricated and characterized in FRL. The sensitivity is 0.583 dB/° and 0.849 dB/°, respectively, in the range of 0° to 90°. Thanks to the FRL system, narrow 3-dB bandwidth (<0.1 nm) and high optical signal-to-noise ratio (~60 dB) are achieved. The tFBG in the FRL system can be used for working as a temperature insensitive inclinometer. The results suggested that the proposed inclinometer has the advantages of compact size and convenient manufacture, enhancing its potential for application prospect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detection of trace cancer markers in body fluids such as blood/serum is crucial for cancer diseases screening and treatment, which requires high sensitivity and specificity of biosensors. In this study, a peanut structure cascaded lasso (PSCL) shaped fiber sensing probe based on fiber laser demodulation method was proposed to specifically detect the carcinoembryonic antigen related cell adhesion molecules 5 (CEACAM5) protein in serum. Thanks for the narrow linewidth and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the laser spectrum, it is easier to distinguish small spectral changes than interference spectrum. Adding the antibody modified magnetic microspheres (MMS) to form the sandwich structure of "antibody-antigen-antibody-MMS", and amplified the response caused by biomolecular binding. The limit of detection (LOD) for CEACAM5 in buffer could reach 0.11 ng/mL. Considering the common threshold of 5 ng/mL for CEA during medical screening and the cut off limit of 2.5 ng/mL for some kits, the LOD of proposed biosensor meets the actual needs. Human serum samples from a hospital were used to validate the real sensing capability of proposed biosensor. The deviation between the measured value in various serum samples and the clinical value ranged from 1.9 to 9.8 %. This sensing scheme holds great potential to serve as a point of care testing (POCT) device and extend to more biosensing applications. [Display omitted] • A lasso-shaped fiber laser biosensor sensitized with magnetic microspheres was proposed for the specific determination of CEACAM5. • The fiber laser biosensor held the limit of detection (LOD) of 0.11 ng/mL, which was better than many recently published paper, and adequate for clinical needs. • The sensing capability of the biosensor was validated via the test of human serum samples, and the experimental results were comparable to the data from clinical assays. • The simple preparation process allowed the sensor for mass production and extend the utility to a broader biosensing field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) fiber laser sensor for simultaneous measurements of axial strain and transverse load, this sensor might be applied in structure health monitoring. In this scheme, transverse load introduces an additional birefringence and consequently a linear beat note frequency change of the orthogonally polarized lasing modes, while the axial strain can be simply deduced from the wavelength shift of the laser. The sensor’s sensitivity is measured to be 1.33 kHz/mg and 1.266 pm/με for lateral load and axial strain respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]