Luminescence-based biochip measurement platforms are employed in a wide range of biological applications, such as biomedical diagnostics. Based on an understanding of the anisotropic emission properties of luminescence emitters close to a dielectric interface, a simple strategy for producing a better than 25-fold enhancement of the detected luminescence is presented. This strategy is demonstrated for low cost polymer platforms compatible with mass-productio

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Recent years have seen the rapid growth in the need for sensors throughout all areas of society including environmental sensing, health-care, public safety and manufacturing quality control. To meet this diverse need, sensors have to evolve from specialized and bespoke systems to miniaturized, low-power, lowcost (almost disposable) ubiquitous platforms. A technology that has been developed which gives a route to meet these challenges is the chemicapacitor sensor. To date the commercialization of these sensors has largely been restricted to humidity sensing, but in this review we examine the progress over recent years to expand this sensing technology to a wide range of gases and vapors. From sensors interrogated with laboratory instrumentation, chemicapacitor sensors have evolved into miniaturized units integrated with low power readout electronics that can selectively detect target molecules to ppm and sub-ppm levels within vapor mixtures.

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This paper examines the recent emergence of miniaturized optical fiber based sensing and actuating devices that have been successfully integrated into fluidic microchannels that are part of microfluidic and lab-on-chip systems. Fluidic microsystems possess the advantages of reduced sample volumes, faster and more sensitive biological assays, multi-sample and parallel analysis, and are seen as the de facto bioanalytical platform of the future. This paper considers the cases where the optical fiber is not merely used as a simple light guide delivering light across a microchannel, but where the fiber itself is engineered to create a new sensor or tool for use within the environment of the fluidic microchannel

We review the field we describe as "single-mode fiber optofluidics" which combines the technologies of microfluidics with single-mode fiber optics for delivering new implementations of well-known single-mode optical fiber devices. The ability of a fluid to be easily shaped to different geometries plus the ability to have its optical properties easily changed via concentration changes or an applied electrical or magnetic field offers potential benefits such as no mechanical moving parts, miniaturization, increased sensitivity and lower costs. However, device fabrication and operation can be more complex than in established singlemode fiber optic devices. . Her research areas include optofluidic devices and applications.Deepak Uttamchandani (SM'05) received his PhD degree from University College London, London, UK in 1985 for research in the areas of optical fiber sensors and optical frequency domain reflectometry. He is currently the Head of the Centre for Microsystems and Photonics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. His early research in MEMS concentrated on opto-thermal microresonator sensors and in investigating techniques for MEMS material characterization using micromechanical resonators. His recent research has concentrated on system applications of optical MEMS including intra-cavity MEMS-based laser systems, MEMS-based directional microphones and MEMS-based single-pixel imaging systems. He has also published in the fields of optofluidic devices, optical sensors, including sub-wavelength tipbased Raman spectroscopy, and in situ intraocular drug detection systems via optical spectroscopy in the eye. In 2014 he organized and chaired the IEEE Optical MEMS and Nanophotonics conference (Glasgow, UK)..

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Measuring the concentration of furfuraldehyde (FFA) within oil samples taken periodically from power transformers is usually carried out as a means of condition monitoring. Normally, laboratory-based techniques such as high performance liquid chromatography are applied for this measurement. We report the construction of a novel optoelectronic sensor for the determination of FFA in transformer oils to concentrations as low as 0.1 ppm. The sensor will form the basis of a compact and portable instrument that can be used by a nonspecialist operator to determine, on-site, the concentration of FFA in oil extracted from the transformer