Novel integrated optical sensing platforms for chemical and immuno-sensing

Main objective of this PhD research project has been to explore the potential of Segmented Waveguide Sensors (SWS) for application in the chemical domain. And indeed large attention has been paid to this SW -principle both for bulk sensing (Chapter 2, design, realization and characterization of a SW sensing system) and for surface sensing (section 4.2, theoretical analysis of an SWS for immuno-sensing). However both the theoretical analysis of, and the experimental results obtained at SW sensors led to ideas about various novel refractive sensing principles. One of them the co-directional Grating Assisted Coupling sensor has been worked out very thoroughly both theoretically and experimentally (Chapter 3), while various other principles have been worked out theoretically only. Here we mention the principles tailored for surface sensing, which have been described in Chapter 4 and which just as the SWS are based on chemically induced changes of modal field profiles. Another sensor, which we have called the Cut Off sensor, is based on a chemically induced passing of the cut off condition of a guided mode (Chapter 5).