光纤传感器在生物医学中的应用进展

光纤在医学和生物学中得到了广泛的应用,从光管道和压力传感器到复杂的化学传感器都与光纤有关.相干光纤束可用于内窥镜成像,而单光纤可用于近红外分层成像和光学相干分层成像.采用光纤还能方便地将光辐射传输到组织内,以激活靶标化学治疗药物.利用平面光纤光导将光波传输到测定部位的化学传感技术可以进行光度和荧光分析.光纤化学传感器还具有表面分子识别位点或化学反应部位,可用于特定分子的检测.这些化学传感器基于表面等离子体共振、干涉、光谱测量或荧光测量等原理.酶的生物识别或抗原抗体结合使光纤传感器可以获得高的特异性.近年来,测定的靶标分子的范围已从简单的气体分子和离子发展到了DNA等大分子.

Advances in fibre optic sensing in medicine and biology

Medical and biological applications of optical fibres span a wide range from lightpipes and pressure or displacement sensors through to complex chemical sensors. Coherent fibre bundles are needed for endoscopic imaging whilst single fibres may be used in both near infra-red tomography and optical coherence tomography. Delivery of light to tissues, for example to activate targeted chemo-therapeutic agents, is also achieved conveniently with fibres. Chemical sensing can simply be achieved by transporting light to and from a measurement site with a plain fibre light guide for spectrophotometric or fluorimetry analysis. A further family of fibre optic chemical sensors has either surface atached molecular recognition sites or a reaction chamber for achieving specific molecular detection. These chemical sensors may be based on the principles of surface plasmon resonance, interferometry, spectriphotometry or fluorimetry. Biological recognition with enzymes or antigen-antibody binding are used to achieve high specificity. The range of potential target molecules has increased rapidly over recent years from simple gases and ions through to large molecules such as DNA.