Acta Optica Sinica, Volume. 45, Issue 9, 0900001(2025)
New Trends in Development of Optical Fiber Sensing Technology
Optical fibers, which can propagate and transmit data through optical signals, have been used in the biomedical field for decades. However, in recent years, with the rapid development of optical fiber technology itself, the progress of this interdisciplinary field has also been greatly promoted. The application of optical fibers has gradually led to the formation of three major technological fields: optical fiber communication technology, optical fiber sensing technology, and the emerging field of optical fiber biomedical technology. Against the backdrop of the booming fiber optic communication and sensing industries, we use a literature statistical prediction method to forecast future development trends. We also aim to review and analyze the demand characteristics of recently developed academic papers and patent applications in the field of biomedical optical fiber applications, while proposing potential solutions to the challenges and key technical problems in this application area.
We summarize the requirements and characteristics of optical fibers used in the biomedical field, based on several typical application scenarios. These include biochemical fiber sensing, optical fiber technology in optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems, optical fiber applications in acousto-optic imaging systems, optothermal diagnosis and treatment, optical fiber sensing of biomarkers, interventional in situ spectral diagnosis, and optical fiber applications in optogenetics. To address the difficulties and challenges in the manufacturing process of these multifunctional fibers, a DIY (do-it-yourself) preparation method is proposed for this kind of new functional integrated fiber, along with the development of a new miniature fiber wire-drawing machine system. The fiber device developed by this fan-in multifunctional integrated fiber DIY preparation system can not only meet the needs of extracting biochemical and physiological information but also support detection, diagnosis, and photodynamic therapy. It also addresses key technical problems in biomedical fibers, such as function integration, device connection and matching, and optical wave mode-field conversion. This provides solid technical support for the wide application of optical fibers in the biomedical field in the future.
From the perspective of sensing needs, biological, medical, and health monitoring systems need to extract biochemical and physiological information from the human body, which plays a crucial role in the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of diseases. Therefore, it is expected that the output of the sensing system will include the quantification results of blood pressure, monitoring of blood glucose, white blood cell count, detection of cancer biomarkers, analysis of renal dysfunction, monitoring results of respiratory rate, label-free biosensing results, analysis results of bone decalcification, detection results of pathology, and prediction results of diseases or their development. From a treatment perspective, there is a need for online photodynamic therapy, photogenetic therapy, acquisition of body fluids or targeted delivery of pharmaceutical liquids. These processes require integrated sensing and monitoring of biological parameters to ensure precision and efficacy. It is this continuous demand that has driven technological progress, and in recent years, optical fiber technology has rapidly advanced in areas such as interventional microscopic imaging and three-dimensional sensing for interventional surgical robots. Looking to the future, optical fibers can have different characteristics and can be combined with various functional devices. For example, the fusion of sensing and microfluidics into the same optical fiber opens up new capabilities for introducing light-based sensors and drug or body fluid delivery systems, which expands their use in different application scenarios in biomedicine. Such specialty fibers could be designed as minimally invasive imaging devices that provide in situ imaging of internal organs, such as lung airways, while also delivering stem cells to them as therapeutic drugs. They could also be designed to direct light directly to the treatment site to achieve photodynamic in vivo therapy.
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Tingting Yuan, Xiaotong Zhang, Yin Liu, Long Jin, Yunyun Huang, Baiou Guan, Zhiyuan Xu, Chengcheng Feng, Shitai Yang, Yijian Chen, Libo Yuan. New Trends in Development of Optical Fiber Sensing Technology[J]. Acta Optica Sinica, 2025, 45(9): 0900001
Category: Reviews
Received: Jan. 2, 2025
Accepted: Feb. 24, 2025
Published Online: May. 14, 2025
The Author Email: Yuan Libo (lbyuan@guet.edu.cn)
CSTR:32393.14.AOS241967