Optical fiber sensors for glucose concentration measurement: A review

Abstract In the past few decades, glucose sensors have attracted continuous attention due to demands in diabetes diagnosis, component analysis, biological detection and environmental monitoring. Optical fiber sensors (OFS) as ideal platforms for glucose detection, presents good biocompatibility, small size, anti-electromagnetic interference, chemical inertness and distinct advantages in remote and real-time monitoring. In this paper, we give a briefly review of the current research progress of optical fiber glucose sensor (OFGS). Three detection principles are described firstly, including oxidation reaction and covalent binding, relationship between concentration and refractive index (RI). Furthermore, several methods in measurement such as Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) method, fiber grating method, modal interference method, and fluorescence method are investigated. Finally, we discuss the shortcomings on OFGS and provide an outlook for OFGS.