Recent advances in the application of semiconductor nanocrystals, or quantumdots, as biochemical sensors are reviewed. Quantum dots have unique optical properties thatmake them promising alternatives to traditional dyes in many luminescence basedbioanalytical techniques. An overview of the more relevant progresses in the application ofquantum dots as biochemical probes is addressed. Special focus will be given toconfigurations where the sensing dots are incorporated in solid membranes and immobilizedin optical fibers or planar waveguide platforms.

For the first time, a high-resolution hyperspectral single-pixel imaging system based on compressive sensing is presented and demonstrated. The system integrates a digital micro-mirror device array to optically compress the image to be acquired and an optical spectrum analyzer to enable high spectral resolution. The system’s ability to successfully reconstruct images with 10 pm spectral resolution is proven.

The potential of different fiber Bragg grating pairs for simultaneous sensing of strain and temperature is analyzed. We demonstrate that interferometric interrogation of a fiber grating written in bow-tie fiber enables strain and temperature to be simultaneously determined. This is achieved by independent measurement of the shift in the wavelengths of the reflected light from the grating components along the fast and the slow axes of the hi-bi fiber. A detailed theoretical analysis is presented that includes the basic sensing principle, sensor design and demodulation scheme. The performance of the proposed technique in simultaneous measurement of temperature and strain is experimentally demonstrated and resolutions of ± 2.5° c/?Hz and ± 26 ??/?Hz are obtained for a fiber with birefringence of B = 5.5x 10-4.

A new class of all-fiber beam shaping devices has been realized by inverse etching the end face of single mode and multimode fibers to form a concave cone tip. Concave tip fiber can convert a Gaussian beam profile to a flat top beam profile with a uniform intensity distribution. A flat top beam with intensity variation of approx. 5% and flat top diameter to spot diameter ratio of 67% has been achieved. This device can also change the beam shape from a Gaussian to a donut by moving the observation plane. A flat top multimode fiber beam delivery is attractive for applications which require high power and uniform intensity distribution. In single mode fiber, concave tips could be used to reduce the beam spot size diameter, enabling efficient light coupling from a single mode fiber to an integrated optical waveguide.

Some scenes and objects have a wide range of brightness that cannot be captured with a conventional camera. This limitation, which degrades the dynamic range of an imaged scene or object, is addressed by use of high dynamic range (HDR) imaging techniques. With HDR imaging techniques, images of a very broad range of intensity can be obtained with conventional cameras. Another limitation of conventional cameras is the range of wavelength that they can capture. Outside the visible wavelengths, the responsivity of conventional cameras drops; therefore, a conventional camera cannot capture images in nonvisible wavelengths. Compressive imaging is a solution for this problem. Compressive imaging reduces the number of pixels of a camera to one, so a camera can be replaced by a detector with one pixel. The range of wavelengths to which such detectors are responsive is much wider than that of a conventional camera. A combination of HDR imaging and compressive imaging is introduced and is benefitted from the advantages of both techniques. An algorithm that combines these two techniques is proposed, and results are presented.