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A technique for the excitation of whispering gallery modes (WGMs) has been demonstrated using a dye-doped microsphere positioned onto the tip of a suspended core microstructured optical fiber. With this configuration, we have shown that both the excitation and collection efficiency of the WGMs modulated fluorescence spectra of the dye are greatly improved compared to a more conventional excitation scheme; an overall efficiency increase by a factor of 200 is demonstrated. It is also shown that positioning the resonator onto the fiber tip does not impact its sensitivity, providing a compact and robust architecture for applications such as localized in-vivo/vitro biosensing.

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In this review, we examine recent developments in the field of chemical and biological sensing utilizing suspended-core, exposed-core, and hollow-core microstructured optical fibers. Depending on the intended application, a host of sensing modalities have been utilized including labelled fluorescence techniques, and label-free methods such as surface plasmon resonance, fiber Bragg gratings, and Raman scattering. The use of various functionalization techniques adds specificity to both chemical ions and biological molecules. The results shown here highlight some of the important benefits that arise with the use of microstructured optical fibers compared to traditional techniques, including small sample volumes, high sensitivity, and multiplexing.