Sensors 2011, 11(1), 785-805; doi:10.3390/s110100785
Review

Optical Microspherical Resonators for Biomedical Sensing

Silvia Soria 1,* email, Simone Berneschi 1,2 email, Massimo Brenci 1 email, Franco Cosi 1 email, Gualtiero Nunzi Conti 1 email, Stefano Pelli 1 email and Giancarlo C. Righini 1 email
1 MDF Lab, Istituto di Fisica Applicata Nello Carrara (IFAC CNR), Via Madonna del Piano 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Firenze, Italy 2 Centro Studi e Ricerche e Museo Storico della Fisica Enrico Fermi, Piazza del Viminale 1, 00184 Roma, Italy
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 8 December 2010; in revised form: 28 December 2010 / Accepted: 6 January 2011 / Published: 12 January 2011
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Optical Resonant Microsensors)
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Abstract: Optical resonators play an ubiquitous role in modern optics. A particular class of optical resonators is constituted by spherical dielectric structures, where optical rays are total internal reflected. Due to minimal reflection losses and to potentially very low material absorption, these guided modes, known as whispering gallery modes, can confer the resonator an exceptionally high quality factor Q, leading to high energy density, narrow resonant-wavelength lines and a lengthy cavity ringdown. These attractive characteristics make these miniaturized optical resonators especially suited as laser cavities and resonant filters, but also as very sensitive sensors. First, a brief analysis is presented of the characteristics of microspherical resonators, of their fabrication methods, and of the light coupling techniques. Then, we attempt to overview some of the recent advances in the development of microspherical biosensors, underlining a number of important applications in the biomedical field.
Keywords: microspheres; whispering gallery modes; biomedical sensors; optical resonators

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Cite This Article

MDPI and ACS Style

Soria, S.; Berneschi, S.; Brenci, M.; Cosi, F.; Nunzi Conti, G.; Pelli, S.; Righini, G.C. Optical Microspherical Resonators for Biomedical Sensing. Sensors 2011, 11, 785-805.

AMA Style

Soria S, Berneschi S, Brenci M, Cosi F, Nunzi Conti G, Pelli S, Righini GC. Optical Microspherical Resonators for Biomedical Sensing. Sensors. 2011; 11(1):785-805.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Soria, Silvia; Berneschi, Simone; Brenci, Massimo; Cosi, Franco; Nunzi Conti, Gualtiero; Pelli, Stefano; Righini, Giancarlo C. 2011. "Optical Microspherical Resonators for Biomedical Sensing." Sensors 11, no. 1: 785-805.

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