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The Center for Photonics Technology (CPT) at Virginia Tech is one of the nation's largest optical sensor research programs. Our sensor research ranges from new sensing mechanisms to nano-scale material synthesis, from device innovations to system implementation, from physical to chemical, medical and biological measurement, from single point to distributed sensing and from normal environment to extreme physical and chemical conditions.

First Fully-Distributed Biosensor
It was demonstrated lately at CPT that nano-scale change in the film on the surface of an optical fiber can be accurately measured at any point along the fiber. To our best knowledge, this is the first time to gain such a capability. When functional nanoparticles or receptors are immobilized in the film, this technology can be applied for distributed detection of a variety of chemical and biological agents. This work is sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation.

Random Hole Optical Fiber
A new class of optical fiber was recently developed. The new fiber has 'standing' radial holes in its cladding so ambient gases can quickly penetrate through the cladding to reach the fiber core. Gas sensors based this fiber can overcome the slow response time problem associated with traditional holey fiber based chemical sensors. The response time can now be reduced from hours to less than one second. This research is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.