Remarkable developments and improvement have been observed in the field of optical fiberbased
sensors in the last decade, for physical, chemical and biological applications. Many new sensors for
specific analytes have been reported, novel sensing chemistries or transduction principles have been
introduced, and applications in various fields have been realized. This boost has been pushed also by the
mature fabrication technology of photonic crystal fibers whose peculiar properties well fit requirement for
efficient sensing systems. Discussions on the main issues related to the use of photonic crystal fibers in
biosensing applications is reported. Specific description of fiber functionalization for the detection of
biologically relevant analytes is described highlighting deposition procedures of selective probes.
Keywords: Biosensing, optical fibers, photonic crystal fibers, DNA, PNA probe, silanization.
