Multifunctional Integration On Optical Fiber Tips: Challenges and Opportunities

Review Article
Multifunctional integration on optical fiber tips:

challenges and opportunities
Yifeng Xiong and Fei Xu*
Nanjing University, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing, China
Abstract. The flat endface of an optical fiber tip is an emerging light-coupled microscopic platform that
combines fiber optics with planar micro- and nanotechnologies. Since different materials and structures are
integrated onto the endfaces, optical fiber tip devices have miniature sizes, diverse integrated functions, and
low insertion losses, making them suitable for all-optical networks. In recent decades, the increasing demand
for multifunctional optical fibers has created opportunities to develop various structures on fiber tips.
Meanwhile, the unconventional shape of optical fibers presents challenges involving the adaptation of
standard planar micro- and nanostructure preparation strategies for fiber tips. In this context, researchers are
committed to exploring and optimizing fiber tip manufacturing techniques, thereby paving the way for future
integrated all-fiber devices with multifunctional applications. First, we present a broad overview of current
fabrication technologies, classified as “top-down,” “bottom-up,” and “material transfer” methods, for patterning
optical fiber tips. Next, we review typical structures integrated on fiber tips and their known and potential
applications, categorized with respect to functional structure configurations, including “optical functionaliza-
tion” and “electrical integration.” Finally, we discuss the prospects for future opportunities involving multi-
functional integrated fiber tips.
Keywords: optical fibers; fiber tips; optical devices; nanotechnology; micro-optics; nano-optics.
Received Aug. 6, 2020; revised manuscript received Sep. 20, 2020; accepted for publication Sep. 25, 2020; published online
Nov. 4, 2020.
© The Authors. Published by SPIE and CLP under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or
reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.
[DOI: 10.1117/1.AP.2.6.064001]
1 Introduction optical fiber configurations in the fiber-drawing, with the

aim of producing fibers that can see, hear, sense, and
Since 1966, when K. C. Kao and G. A. Hockham proposed the communicate.1–12 The field of “multimaterial fibers” arouses
idea of low-optical-loss glass fibers, the invention of ultralow- great industrial interest, while it also faces some technological
loss silica optical fibers has contributed to the rapid develop- challenges. Alternatively, there is thriving research momentum
ment of numerous fields, including communications, sensing, in innovating commercially available optical fibers and devel-
lasing, and imaging. The unique properties of optical fibers, in- oping lab-on-fiber (LOF) technology.
cluding their small size, ultrahigh aspect ratio, high mechanical In recent decades, numerous designs for LOF devices have
robustness, immunity to electromagnetic interference, and high been reported; these can be classified with respect to their ap-
biocompatibility, facilitate their application in various environ- proach to light–matter interactions and divided into two types:
ments such as remote distances, confined spaces, and even harsh waveguide integration and fiber tip integration. Waveguide in-
environments with extremes of temperature, pressure, corrosion, tegration includes the integration of functional materials on the
and electromagnetic field. outer cylindrical surface of optical fibers (such as micro-
However, the limitations of the material characteristics (most fibers,13,14 unclad fibers,15,16 and D-shaped fibers15,17,18), and the
often SiO2 ) and geometry structures of optical fibers hinder function performed within the fiber [e.g., fiber Bragg gratings19
further applications. To solve this problem, researchers have and holey structures characteristic of photonic crystal (PC)
attempted to integrate different materials and structures into fibers20]. Although these devices achieve light–matter inter-
actions over long distances and large areas, they often suffer
*Address all correspondence to Fei Xu, [email protected] from certain drawbacks such as large device size, high insertion
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Xiong and Xu: Multifunctional integration on optical fiber tips: challenges and opportunities
micro/nanostructure integration, nanomaterials for building

functionalized optical fiber tips are introduced, which has rarely
been summarized systematically in previous reviews.
Geometrical Diffraction Polarizers In this paper, we first review the main fabrication technolo-
optical elements optical elements gies reported thus far for multifunctional fiber tip devices,
including mechanical processing, chemical etching, focused
Miniaturizing Integrating ion beam (FIB) etching, laser processing, lithography methods,
Lasers
self-assembly (SA), and chemical vapor deposition (CVD)/
Photodetectors
physical vapor deposition (PVD) processing, as well as material
transfer methods. Subsequently, we overview some of the most
Sensors typical and interesting structures applied to fiber tips and present
Modulators
a detailed overview of the related devices and their general field
of applications. Finally, we review the ongoing development of
strategies aiming at building multifunctional fiber tip devices
with improved integration and increased application diversity.
2 Fabrication Technologies
2.1 Top-Down Methodologies
Fig. 1 Multifunctional integration on optical fiber tips. Traditional
optical, electrical, acoustic, thermal, biological, and chemical Top-down fabrication is a subtractive process in which material
structures have been miniaturized and integrated onto optical is removed gradually from the bulk to form micro/nanometer-
fiber tips. size structures with a controlled shape and size. As shown in
Fig. 2, typical examples of top-down approaches are discussed
in this section, including FIB etching, plasma etching (PE),
loss, and incompatibility with traditional planar micro- and photolithography, and electron-beam lithography (EBL). In
nanofabrication technologies. Fiber tip integration refers to general, most top-down fabrication methods are not suitable for
the integration of functional materials and structures on the mi- production on a very large scale, owing to the long duration and
croscale plane of the fiber endface, which provides an inherently high costs associated with these methods. Nevertheless, they re-
light-coupled platform for micro- and nanotechnologies. Fiber present some of the most common approaches used to produce
tip devices have been emerging as new integrated plug and play controlled two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D)
components for optical networks (Fig. 1); they have small de- periodic features on substrates.
vice volumes and low insertion losses but suffer limitations of On the platform of the fiber tip, conventional fabrication
short light–matter interaction distance and small sensing area as technologies typically require optimization. For example, the
a trade-off. Moreover, the unconventional shape of optical optical fiber has a small diameter and a large aspect ratio, which
fibers, which have a small diameter and a large aspect ratio,
presents challenges when adapting standard planar nanostruc-
ture fabrication strategies for fiber tips. Fabrication technologies
In response to these challenges, researchers used two princi-
Preform-to-fiber co-drawing
pal approaches. In the first approach, the nanomaterials or nano-
Mechanical processing
g
structures are fabricated on a planar substrate using standard
materials synthesis processes and planar nanotechnologies. Thermal treatment
The main challenge facing this approach is the subsequent trans- 1. Top-down Chemical etching
fer of the prepared structure onto the fiber tip and ensuring that FIB milling
the completed structure is bonded firmly to the fiber tip and Photolithography
Fs laser ablation
aligned precisely to the fiber core. This approach is elaborated Interference lithography
on later as part of the discussion on material transfer method- Lithography methodologies
Nanoimprint lithography
ologies. The second approach focuses on fabricating the nano- Self-assembly
materials or nanostructure on the fiber tips directly via CVD/PVD processing
Electron-beam lithography
optimized fabrication strategies, which can be categorized as 2. Bottom-up
either “top down” or “bottom up” methodologies. 3D direct laser writing
So far, there have been several review papers on LOF tech- Self-guiding photopolymerization
y i ti
nology, which have provided a timely overview on many aspects Direct transfer
ranging from materials and mechanisms to fabrication tech- 3. Materials transfer
Nano-transfer
niques as well as device configuration designs, with the aim
of realizing integrated and miniaturized all-fiber systems.21–26
As the research continues, the multifunctional fiber tips have Fig. 2 Tree diagram of the fabrication technologies for LOF-tip.
broader application prospects and get closer to practical appli- The “top down” and “bottom up” methodologies involve fabricat-
cations. It is nontrivial to give a systematic overview of their ing the nanomaterials or nanostructure on the fiber tips directly,
pros and cons for fabrication techniques and a detailed classi- while the material transfer methodologies involve fabricating the
fication on the related fiber tip applications, considering the op- nanomaterials or nanostructure separately on a planar substrate
tical and optoelectrical functional integration. In addition to the before transferring the prepared structure onto the fiber tips.

poses challenges for traditional spin-coating of the photoresist were assembled on the optical fiber tips. Typical opto-
for lithography fabrication. Silica optical fibers without a pro- mechanical cavities include simple cantilevers or membranes
tection polymer cladding are usually fragile, making controlling sustained by cantilevers, placed suspended on the optical fiber
the fiber and handling it using the fabrication equipment incred- endfaces, demonstrating the application of accelerometers,39
ibly difficult. In recent decades, many fabrication technologies optical force transducers for mapping tissue mechanics,40
have been transferred successfully from planar systems onto op- local dynamic mechanical measurement,41 as well as seismic
tical fibers. A selection of these methods is discussed hereafter. sensors.42
In addition, the introduction of microrobot arms inside the
2.1.1 Preform-to-fiber co-drawing method scanning electron microscope (SEM) vacuum chamber provides
The direct homothetic preform-to-fiber co-drawing method can possibilities for cutting, etching, folding, assembling, and then
produce microstructured “multimaterial fibers” combined with welding thin membranes on top of optical fiber tips. Under this
a variety of materials with disparate electrical, optical, and approach, Rauch et al.43 fabricated a small microhouse on an
mechanical properties by thermal drawing. This method could optical fiber endface, which was carved by FIB, assembled
be applied to a wide range of polymers, glasses, polymer com- by origami, and welded by microrobot nanofactory. Although
posites, metals, semiconductors, and dielectrics, which greatly the shortcomings of fabricating them reliably, reproducibly, and
improves the scope of applications for optical fibers.1–12,27–30 stably remain, it is a potential way to realize several 3D micro-
This multimaterial thermal drawing method takes advantage and nanostructures on fiber tips.
of the scalability of fiber processing that enables complex and
multiple functionalities within optical fibers. Nevertheless, 2.1.3 Thermal treatment
manufacturing the internal architecture of optical fibers is a rel- Thermal treatment includes some basic optical fiber operations
atively complex and expensive process that is limited by the such as splicing and melting. Splicing is an efficient way to fab-
compatible materials and special geometries available. ricate functional fiber tips quickly. For example, optical fiber
2.1.2 Mechanical processing
Fabry–Perot (FP) cavities can be fabricated easily by splicing
a cleaved optical fiber and a short capillary and subsequently
Mechanical processing is a simple method for optical fiber tip laminating a thin film on the surface to form an optical micro-
fabrication, which includes some basic optical fiber machining cavity that can sense sound, vibration, and pressure.44–49 In ad-
such as polishing. It can quickly and easily process the fiber tips dition, both coreless and hollow fibers as well as certain fiber
on a large scale, but obtaining fine structures is difficult. In the fusion structures (such as bubbles) have also been used to form
1990s, fiber tips were roughened using a piece of polish paper to resonant cavities.50
obtain rough fiber endfaces, and then a metallic film was coated Owing to the surface tension of silica, microspheres can be
on this rough surface to support plasmonic resonances to pro- easily created at the fiber tip by melting it. The high tempera-
duce fibers suitable for surface-enhanced Raman scattering tures required here can be provided by a CO2 laser, high temper-
(SERS) sensors.31–33 Thereafter, fiber tips were polished into ature flame, or the arc discharge of a fusion splicer machine.51 In
different shapes, such as fiber microaxicons, using polishing recent decades, microspheres on fiber tips have been deployed
techniques.34 Moreover, polishing techniques were also used as microlenses, resonators in a range of sensing applications.52–55
to process metal structures on optical fibers.35–37 As shown in
Fig. 3, Chen et al.38 fabricated electrodes on optical fibers using 2.1.4 Chemical etching
lapping films and tapered tungsten needles to remove a portion
Silica and glass optical fibers can be chemically etched via a
of the precoated gold film on the fiber sidewall and facet.
buffered hydrogen fluoride solution containing a certain per-
Mechanical assembly is an approach widely used to fabricate
centage of hydrofluoric acid (HF) and an aqueous solution of
optomechanical devices, where microoptomechanical cavities
ammonium fluoride (NH4 F). The etching speeds relating to fi-
ber cores and claddings depend on the doping materials and the
volume ratio of the etching solution; they can also be controlled
via the etching time, HF concentration, and the temperature of
Cleaved optical fiber the solution.
Over recent decades, chemical etching methods have been
Metal film Lateral wall used frequently to process functional structures on optical
deposition polishing fibers.56–58 When the etching speed for fiber cladding is faster
than that for the fiber core, a cone-shaped structure is formed
Moving
Lapping film on the top of the fiber. Thus, Eisenstein and Vitello59 proposed
Metallic probe
Electrodes on fiber a conical microlens on a fiber tip to reduce coupling loss be-
tween a laser diode and a single-mode fiber. Optical near-field
Ultrasonic End-face microscopic probes with high transmission efficiency were
cleaning scratching demonstrated using a double taper-etched fiber tip structure
coated with a layer of metal.60–63 Adopting a similar approach,
Maruyama et al.64 reported a pencil-shaped nanometer-sized op-
Fig. 3 Schematic of the mechanical fabrication processes for tical fiber electrode for scanning optical and electrochemical
electrodes on an optical fiber tip.38 First, lapping films are used microscopy. Recently, Wang et al.65 fabricated 2D light-guiding
to remove a portion of the precoated gold from the fiber sidewall. arrays formed from mechanically compliant glass nanospikes,
Then, an electrode on a fiber facet is fabricated by scratching the measuring 100 μm in length, by dipping a multicore fiber into
gold layer using a tapered tungsten needle. dilute nitric acid.

Moreover, chemical etching has also been used to fabricate nanostructures with minimal impact on the surrounding materi-
holes in the fiber core using a faster etch speed for the fiber core als. While the fs laser etching process is generally faster and
than for the fiber cladding.66 For example, Zheng et al.67 pro- cheaper than those based on FIB milling, the processing accu-
duced an optical fiber current sensor based on a graphene nano- racy is challenging for further applications. Faced with this chal-
electromechanical system (NEMS), in which a graphene film lenge, fs laser two-/multiphoton polymerization methods have
covered the hole on a chemically etched fiber tip and two gold been developed, which are discussed in the section on bottom-
electrodes were placed on opposite sides of the tip. up methodologies.
In general, chemical etching methods can quickly and effec- In recent decades, several fs laser machining methods have
tively corrode optical fiber materials, which facilitate large-scale been proposed. For example, fs lasers have been utilized to
production. Different fiber tip structures can be obtained de- ablate fiber glass to create grating structures, Fresnel zone plate
pending on the selection of the optical fiber doping materials lenses, and rough surfaces on fiber endfaces to facilitate sensing,
and the etching conditions. However, chemical etching struggles imaging, SERS, and many other applications.81–84
to process highly complex structures accurately.
2.1.7 Lithography methodology
2.1.5 Focused ion beam milling Lithography methods are powerful and precise approaches for
FIB milling is a typical top-down approach that uses a high- micro- and nanofabrication, which are utilized widely in the
energy FIB to remove atoms from the sample surface, thereby fields of nanoelectronics and photonics. With the development
allowing the direct patterning of materials ranging from fiber of nanotechnology, lithography methods have progressed from
glass to metals to create a desired micro/nanoscale surface conventional optical-based photolithography to newer technol-
topography. ogies that use electron beams, x-rays, micro-ion beams, and fo-
Thus far, many studies have proposed FIB milling patterns cused lasers as radiation sources, which increase the precision of
on fiber tips. In the mid-2000s, FIB milling was used predomi- the transferred patterns significantly. A fiber endface can be re-
nantly to etch fiber glass on the fiber tip, aiming at carving the garded as a relatively large planar surface on which to embrace
optical fiber tip to miniaturize optical and mechanical devices.68 the lithography technologies, which were originally applied to
For example, Schiappelli et al.69 demonstrated an FIB fabricated planar substrates. However, owing to the shape of the optical
microlens on the fiber tip to realize efficient optical coupling fiber, applying the lithography process to the fiber endface also
between a single-mode fiber and a waveguide. Iannuzzi et al.70,71 faces several challenges.
used FIB to achieve an atomic force microscope (AFM) based In general, obtaining a uniform resist layer on an optical fiber
on a microcantilever on a fiber tip. By properly shaping the fiber facet with a controllable thickness is one of the most important
tip of an annular-core fiber, Liberale et al.72 demonstrated minia- yet challenging procedures that form the lithography process.
turized all-fiber optical tweezers, which is promising for optical Lin and coworkers proposed the “dip and vibration” coating
3D trapping and manipulation. technique [Fig. 4(a)], in which the optical fiber was dipped into
In addition to the direct etching of fiber glass on fiber tips, the resist solution and taken out to execute the mechanical vi-
fiber devices based on FIB-fabricated metallic nanostructures bration process. In the vibration procedure, the optical fiber was
have been proposed to support surface plasmons.73–75 For in- held by a fiber clamp and oriented to face directly upward. The
stance, Dhawan et al.76,77 used FIB milling to fabricate ordered resist layer thickness was controlled by adjusting the length of
arrays of nanoholes on gold-coated cleaved or tapered optical the fiber tip outside of the fiber clamp and the initial displace-
fibers, and they demonstrated the sensing of the refractive index ment of the fiber tip.85–87
(RI). Recently, Principe et al.78 reported an optical fiber “meta- Moreover, spin-coating is a traditional method for resist coat-
tip” (MT) by integrating a phase-gradient plasmonic meta- ing on planar substrates, which can control the thickness of coat-
surface on the fiber tip. ing layers precisely via the spinning time and rotation rate.
Moreover, FIB processing has been employed to template However, the small diameter and large aspect ratio of the optical
optical fiber tips. After patterning the fiber glass, different fiber make it difficult to adapt the traditional spin-coating
materials can be deposited to form hybrid nanostructures that method for application to optical fiber tips. One reason for this
serve multiple applications.79 For example, Micco et al.80 milled is that there is no commercial rotating chuck in which to hold
the fiber glass directly and subsequently deposited a high RI fibers in a vertical direction. In addition, the spin-coating pro-
material overlay, thus forming a “double-layer” PC slab and cess typically produces edge beads around the perimeter of
supporting the guided resonance. the substrates, which is especially obvious for small-sized
In general, FIB milling exploits the advantages of maskless substrates such as optical fiber endfaces. To overcome these
patterning; however, it also suffers from some intrinsic draw-
backs. First, it is hard to avoid creating patterned structures with
angled sidewalls, especially when the size of the etched struc- (a) Mechanical vibration (b)
ture is large. Second, although a thin metal film is predeposited Dipping Taking out
Spinning
on optical fibers, ion doping of the substrate is unavoidable be-
cause of the poor conductivity of optical fibers. Furthermore,
FIB milling is time-consuming, and the processing area is
Perforated rotating chunk
limited for each fabrication step.23 Resist solution
2.1.6 Femtosecond laser ablation Fig. 4 Methods to obtain a thin photoresist film on optical fiber
Femtosecond (fs) laser ablation utilizes a similar processing endfaces. (a) Schematic illustration of the “dip and vibration”
principle as FIB milling. The focused fs laser has a very high method.85–87 (b) Schematic illustration of the spin-coating method.
instantaneous power, which can quickly and effectively pattern The optical fiber is fixed to a perforated rotating chunk.88

difficulties, Consales et al.88 adopted a customized rotating coating of silver. The minimum processing resolution of IL is
chuck to hold the optical fibers [Fig. 4(b)] and confirmed the half of the light wavelength, and this represents the main draw-
uniform thickness of the spin-coated layer over an area with back of the technique. In addition, the IL technique is only suit-
a diameter of ∼50 to 60 μm over the fiber core. Furthermore, able for processing array structures.
Feng et al.89 proposed a fiber holder consisting of two brass
half-cylinders with triangular grooves, in which the fibers were Nanoimprint lithography. Nanoimprinting (NI) is a simple pat-
fixed by conductive carbon glue. The holder was then clamped terning technique that enables the user to produce large-area,
by screws and polished to obtain a large smooth surface that high-resolution nanometer-scale patterns via the mechanical
included the optical fiber endfaces. For the most part, the large modification of materials, with low cost and high-throughput.
surface of the holder reduces the influence of edge beads form- Despite these advantages, when the predesigned pattern on
ing during the spin-coating procedure, which benefits mass pro- the template has small dimensions, it is challenging to align
duction. the optical fibers precisely with the patterns during NI.
After solving the resist coating problem, multiple lithography NI onto optical fiber endfaces can be categorized into two
methods including photolithography, EBL, nanoimprint lithog- main approaches. Following one approach, the nanoimprint
raphy (NIL), and interference lithography (IL) have been can be implemented directly on the thermally softened fiber tips
proposed for application to optical fiber endfaces; they are of polymer fibers, polycrystalline silver-halide, chalcogenide
reviewed below. optical fibers, and polymer layers on fibers.97–102 Compared to
common silica optical fibers, all of the optical fibers mentioned
Photolithography. Conventional photolithography involves above are made of low transition temperature materials.
the transfer of patterns from masks to planar substrates, which As shown in Fig. 5(a), optical fibers with low transition tem-
is comprised of the optical–chemical reaction of the photoresist peratures are aligned and placed in contact with the heated mold
and, subsequently, either chemical/physical etching or the metal bearing the patterns. Then, the optical fiber is thermally soft-
coating method. The precise alignment of the mask and the op- ened, and the mechanical contact of the optical fiber and mold
tical fiber during the photolithography process is crucial. Most imposes both surface planarity and texture details onto the fiber
photolithography equipment is designed for planar substrates, endfaces. In this way, Sakata and Imada used a plastic optical
which leads to compatibility issues with the vertically oriented fiber to imprint the patterns of concave lens cavities for efficient
optical fibers. Therefore, special processing is required to realize optical coupling directly. The temperature of the imprint mold
the conventional photolithography process for optical fiber was set to be 150°C to 155°C, and the lens cavities were filled
endfaces.90 with a high RI liquid resin after the imprinting process.101
A number of studies describe attempts to pattern optical fiber Sanghera et al.99 adopted a similar approach to demonstrate a
facets using the photolithography method. For example, microstructured chalcogenide fiber tip with antireflective prop-
Johnson et al.91 prepared a wafer consisting of tightly packed erties by NI at a temperature of 200°C to 240°C. The drawbacks
coreless fiber bundles and fabricated diffractive optical elements of NI directly on fiber endfaces are the inherent limitations of
using photolithography. Conversely, Petrušis et al.92 proposed an the optical fiber materials and the distortion incurred during the
all-in-fiber photolithography technique, where the lithography thermal molding of the optical fibers.
mask was fabricated on an ultraviolet multimode fiber endface, Therefore, the NIL method has been proposed and applied to
which was aligned and brought into contact of another photopolymer precoated optical fiber endfaces. In contrast to lithog-
resist-coated fiber via a commercially available optical fiber raphy methods using focused light, electron beams, and
splicing machine. Consequently, ultraviolet light was coupled many other radiation sources, the resolution of NIL depends
from the opposite end of the mask fiber, and the pattern was
transferred to the target fiber.
In addition to photolithography with a physical photomask, a
maskless fabrication system for integrating microscale optical (a) Patterns on optical fiber
structures with fiber endfaces was proposed recently by Kim
and Jeong.93 This maskless UV exposure system used a digital Alignment Separation
micromirror device (DMD) as a variable photomask, which pro-

vided a spatial resolution of 2.2 μm for an exposed area of
245 μm × 185 μm. Patterns on the template Contact and heating Softened fiber tip
(b) Patterns on polymer layer

Interference lithography. The IL technique allows a photore-
sist to record precise periodic interference patterns comprising Alignment Separation
two or more coherent light beams. In general, different array
structures in one-, two-, or three-dimensions can be fabricated
using different light beam combinations. For instance, Choi Polymer layer Contact and exposure
et al.94 used the IL method to inscribe one- and two-dimensional
surface relief gratings on an optical fiber endface covered with Fig. 5 Schematic illustration of the NI process of optical fibers.
an azo polymer thin film layer. Following a similar approach, (a) NI process based on thermal softening. The optical fiber is
Feng et al.95 fabricated optical fiber-based devices consisting aligned and placed in contact with the heated mold to transfer
of a ZnO waveguide and photoresist grating-structures. patterns onto the fiber tip. (b) NI process based on lithography.
Alternatively, Yang et al.96 used the IL method to pattern photo- The optical fiber is precoated with polymer, then aligned, and
resist nanopillars on fiber endfaces and subsequently proposed placed in contact with the mold, with patterns transferred to
an optical fiber SERS probe by etching the fiber and applying a the polymer layer via the exposure procedure.

predominantly on the accuracy of the template and thus is free used directly as optical components,88,111,112 or they can serve
from light diffraction or electron scattering. Moreover, the direct as masks for subsequent etching or lift-off procedures.86,87,89,113
assembly of polymer layers onto fiber endfaces eliminates the By contrast, the other approach first deposits a metal layer on a
need for further material transfer steps. As shown in Fig. 5(b), fiber and coats a layer of electron beam resist. After the EBL
the optical fiber is coated with a layer of a light curable polymer, process, the pattern on the electron beam resist layer is trans-
typically via the dip-coating method. Then, the optical fiber is ferred to the metal layer below using etching methods.
aligned and placed into contact with the mold bearing the pat- The EBL process provides a precise and versatile approach
terns, followed by the exposure procedure. The mechanical con- for integrating nanostructures such as photonic and plasmonic
tact between the optical fiber and the mold imposes both surface crystals onto optical fiber tips. The typical area that can be pat-
planarity and texture structures onto the polymer layer. terned with EBL is of the order of 100 μm × 100 μm, which
In this context, periodic patterns with subwavelength corresponds to the dimensions of optical fibers. Nevertheless,
dimensions have been fabricated successfully using NIL.103–107 EBL also suffers from some intrinsic drawbacks, such as the
Micro-optical devices such as near-field probes have also been angled sidewalls of patterned structures and the time-consuming
reported; such devices use NIL to fabricate functional optical nature of the patterning process, which excludes it as a vehicle
transformers onto optical fiber endfaces.108 These approaches for mass production. EBL is also used to fabricate nanostruc-
necessitate a high precision multi-axis translation stage to align tures on planar substrates that are then transferred to optical fi-
the small-sized optical fibers and the proportionally small-sized ber endfaces; this is discussed later and referred to as the
molds precisely. To surmount this problem, Kostovski et al.109 “nanotransfer method.”
utilized a technique using a single-axis linear stage for parallel,
self-aligned, and portable optical fiber NIL. They employed a
row of U-shaped grooves on the stage to confine the optical fi- 2.2 Bottom-Up Methodologies
bers, allowing them to self-align against the large-area curved
mold, thus reducing the operation difficulty and increasing Bottom-up fabrication is an additive process in which single
the throughput. atomic or molecular species are used to create self-assembled
clusters with desired conformations. Bottom-up methodologies
Electron-beam lithography. EBL is a powerful serial method usually have low device production costs, which are an advan-
for nanofabrication, whereby a beam of electrons is focused at tage for mass production; however, this is balanced against the
the nanometer scale and scanned in arbitrary 2D geometries sacrifice of precise control of the geometrical and physical
with an ultimate resolution of sub-10 nm. As with photolithog- parameters of the structures. There are numerous bottom-up
raphy, electron irradiation modifies the electron beam resist methods for producing nanostructures, including sol–gel
chemically, finally forming the predesigned pattern after the de- processing, SA, CVD, PVD, atomic layer deposition, 3D print-
velopment process. EBL procedures are afflicted by electrostatic ing, and laser-induced photopolymerization.
charging issues caused by the electrically insulating nature of For some of the bottom-up methods, such as SA and CVD,
optical fiber materials; one solution to this is to deposit conduc- the optical fiber is regarded as a kind of silica substrate, which is
tive layers on the fiber surface.85,88,110 As shown in Fig. 6, there compatible with the fabrication process. As for bottom-up meth-
are two main fabrication approaches for patterning optical fiber ods such as conventional 3D printing, the fabrication technology
endfaces using EBL. One approach first coats a layer of resist on is typically optimized for application on optical fibers, which is
a cleaved optical fiber and then deposits a thin metal layer to quite different than for the planar substrates. Moreover, the light
improve the conductivity of the optical fiber. After electron waveguiding properties of the optical fiber are convenient for
beam exposure, the precoated thin metal layer can be removed methods such as photopolymerization. In recent decades, many
by etching methods such as reactive-ion etching. Then, the pat- fabrication technologies have been applied successfully to the
terned electron beam resist layer is developed, which can be optical fiber platform, as discussed below.
(a) Thin metal film Metal film is removed by etching
M
Metal e
Exposure D
Develop Deposition
on
ccoating Etching
E Lift-off
Polymer coated optical fiber Metallic pattern on the end-face
(b)
Po
Polymerer Exposure
Ex e Develop
D p Etching
Et
ccoating
g
Metal coated optical fiber Polymer layer is cleaned away
Fig. 6 Schematic illustration of the EBL process to make metallic patterns on optical fibers. (a) A
layer of electron beam resist is first coated on the cleaved optical fiber, followed by depositing
a thin metal film to improve the conductivity of the fiber. (b) A layer of metal is first deposited
on the optical fiber, followed by a coating layer of electron beam resist.

2.2.1 Self-assembly 2.2.2 CVD/PVD processing

SA provides a convenient, fast, cheap, and high throughput The CVD process is a common bottom-up approach used to
nanofabrication approach in which the disordered components grow high quality nanomaterials and nanostructures, such as
interact autonomously to form the basic structural units and then NPs, nanotubes, nanowires, 2D materials, metal-organic frame-
spontaneously aggregate into stable structures, resulting in these works, as well as other architectures; it is aided by different re-
structures exhibiting certain features that are characteristic of action chambers and growth-enhancing methods. In typical
noncovalent bonds (e.g., electrostatic attraction). Because of CVD, one or more volatile precursors accumulate and react at
the abundant hydroxyl groups exposed on the silica surface, the substrate surface to produce the desired deposit. Reactions
the optical fibers can be decorated easily with a silane coupling within the reaction chambers can be achieved either with tem-
agent.114 For example, the chemical decoration using (3-amino- perature or with plasma (PECVD). For example, Rabeau et al.125
propyl)triethoxysilane [APTES; NH2 ðCH2 Þ3 -Si-ðOC2 H5 Þ3 ] on used the CVD method to deposit diamond crystals with opti-
the optical fiber surface creates abundant amino groups exposed cally active defects on the optical fiber endfaces, with the fiber
outside, which tend to draw Hþ ions in a solution phase and are capturing the fluorescence generated via the defects in the
positively charged. When immersed in nanomaterial suspen- diamond.
sions, the amino groups on the fiber surface attract the nega- The PVD process is another bottom-up approach deployed to
tively charged nanostructures through the electrostatic force. produce thin films and coatings, in which the material transi-
In contrast, chemical decoration using carboxyethyl silanetriol tions from a condensed phase to a vapor phase and then back
sodium [CEOS; NaOOCðCH2 Þ2 -Si-ðOHÞ3 ] creates abundant to a condensed film on the substrate surface. Typical PVD
negatively charged carboxyls on the fiber surface that adsorb methods include evaporation, sputtering, and epitaxial growth,
positively charged nanostructures. which are all compatible with the optical fiber platform. For in-
In recent years, several methods have been proposed for pat- stance, Chen et al.126 used the magnetron sputtering deposition
terning optical fiber endfaces using SA.115,116 For example, Jeong method to deposit a high-quality WS2 -MoS2 -WS2 hetero-
et al. realized an optical fiber localized surface plasmon reso- structure based on saturable absorbers onto the optical fiber sur-
nance (LSPR) biosensor by integrating spherical Au nanopar- face, thus realizing a high-performance all-fiber laser system.
ticles (NPs) on the fiber tip. The Au NPs were synthesized Alternatively, Lee et al.127,128 proposed a high-temperature sensor
using the Turkevich method and then immobilized on the sur- whereby electron beam evaporation was used to deposit
face of the fiber using SA.117 Adopting a similar approach, ZrO2 ∕Al2 O3 ∕ZrO2 three-layer FP structures on sapphire fiber
Sciacca and Monro118 demonstrated the detection of different surfaces.
target analytes on a single optical fiber probe by exploiting dif- As mentioned above, the CVD/PVD process can fabricate
ferent NPs (Au and Ag), on which different antibodies were im- tailored thin material films and nanostructures on optical fiber
mobilized. Recently, Liu et al.119 reported a laser-induced SA surfaces and is further able to handle multiple fibers in one
method that used the light guided by the optical fiber to assist step, which is useful for mass production. Less positively, it is
the arrangement of NP clusters on the fiber endface, thus dem- challenging to achieve precise control of the geometrical and
onstrating a reproducible optical fiber SERS probe with high physical parameters of the structures.
sensitivity.
In most cases, the nanostructures produced by SA are often 2.2.3 3D direct laser writing
distributed randomly and cannot be controlled precisely. As a bottom-up 3D direct writing technique, TPL, as in multi-
Presented with this problem, Yap et al.120 demonstrated the tem- photon lithography (MPL), facilitates the fabrication of arbitrary
plate-guided SA of Au NPs into ordered arrays of uniform clus- 3D nanostructures with sub-100 nm features.129,130 A typical TPL
ters for high-performance SERS both on flat substrates and direct writing system consists of a laser that provides strong
optical fiber endfaces. They used spin-coating to fine-tune near-infrared fs laser pulses, suitable photoresist materials, a
the template separations by adjusting the spin-coating speed precise 3D nanoposition stage, and a computer that controls
and controlled the distribution of the Au clusters on planar sub- the writing process. The focused fs laser has extremely short
strates successfully. For optical fiber tips, they used the drop- pulse duration and extremely high peak power at the focal point,
coating method to make templates, with their attempt to repro- which transfers energy to the material via a nonlinear process in
duce the same processes on optical fibers leading to close- a short period of time. In TPL, the fs laser is focused intensely
packed but unordered Au clusters. This cluster ordering issue on the photosensitive resist to induce two-photon absorption,
might be solved using spin-coating to fabricate the template. which instigates polymerization of the photoresist at the focal
In contrast to the SA approaches using NPs, Pisco et al.121 point. The laser intensity at other locations on the optical path
exploited an SA phenomenon known as breath figure formation is not sufficient to induce two-photon absorption, while the en-
to fabricate polymeric honeycomb structures on optical fiber ergy of a single-photon is not sufficient for photopolymerization
endfaces. The rapid evaporation of a polymer solution results to occur. Thus, via precise 3D scanning of the focal laser spot
in the condensation of water droplets, which self-assemble into using a computer, the polymerized resist exhibits the desired 3D
a close hexagonal arrangement at the polymer solution/air inter- arrangement with an impressive spatial resolution.
face. After the evaporation of condensed water and residual pol- More recently, microphotonic structures featuring different
ymer solvent, a thin metal film was coated on the prepared TPL-generated shapes and structures on optical fiber endfaces
polymeric honeycomb structure, forming a metal–dielectric have been widely reported (see Fig. 7).134–141 For example,
PC. Nanosphere lithography has also been widely used to build Williams et al.131 used multiphoton direct laser writing to fab-
nanoarray structures, where nanospheres are self-assembled in a ricate various components, including refractive lenses and 3D
hexagonal array on the surface of water. This array of nano- woodpile PCs, within the resin on the endface of the optical
spheres can be easily transferred onto an optical fiber endface fibers. Similarly, Gissibl et al.132,142 presented free-form micro-
to form nanoarray structures.122–124 optical elements, including spherical lenses, toric lenses, chiral

(a) Nano-position stage/ (b1) (b2) (b3)

Fiber holder
Optical fiber
Photoresist
(b4) (b5) (b6)
Oil
Objective lens
NIR fs laser
(c1) (c2) (c3) (d1) (d2)
Fig. 7 3D direct laser writing technique based on TPL/MPL. (a) Schematic illustration of the TPL/
MPL fabrication system, including an optical fiber fixed in fiber holders, a photoresist, a glass slide,
optical matching oil, and an objective lens. (b1)–(b3) False-color SEM images of a compound
microlens system on a fiber endface. (b4)–(b6) False-color SEM images of a woodpile face-cen-
tered tetragonal PC created on a fiber endface.131 Copyright 2011, Optical Society of America.
(c1)–(c3) Different functional optical elements integrated on fiber tips. The scale bars are
25 μm.132 Copyright 2016, Springer Nature. (d1), (d2) False-color SEM image and the rendered
view of a polarizing beam splitter on a fiber endface. The scale bars are 10 μm.133 Copyright 2018,
Optical Society of America.
PC structures, and multilens objectives, integrated on optical parameters, such as laser intensity, exposure time, oxygen
fiber endfaces with submicrometer accuracy for numerous quenching, and internal filtering.153 The fabricated polymer
applications involving beam shaping, collimation, focusing, tip can reach hundreds of microns in length by dipping a
and imaging. Benefiting from the high degree of control and single-mode fiber into a thick layer of photopolymerizable
processing freedom afforded by TPL, Xie et al.143,144 demon- solution.154,155 When the photopolymerization process is applied
strated a 3D SERS radar on optical fiber endfaces using a series to a multimode fiber, a 3D polymer mold of the fiber’s linearly
of 3D direct writing techniques, such as thermal evaporation and polarized modes can be obtained, which is controlled by the
UV laser pulse irradiation. Furthermore, Kim et al.145 fabricated coupling of the incident light beam to the optical fiber. These
a range of SERS arrays on both planar substrates and optical prepared polymer tips have been used for coupling light from
fiber endfaces with strong repeatability and consistency, high- single-mode optical fibers to small core photonic-crystal fibers
lighting the suitability of this technique for mass production. (PCFs) and subwavelength single-mode silicon-on-insulator
More recently, Zhang et al.146,147 demonstrated a 3D optical mi- (SOI) waveguides.156,157 Moreover, optical tweezers were also
crosystem on the endface of a multicore optical fiber, enabling realized using two polymer tips to construct a counterpropagat-
the excitation and detection of whispering gallery modes, which ing optical trap.158
can be used for sensing volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
In addition, a 3D microprinting technology was reported by 2.3 Material Transfer Methodologies
Yao et al.148–151, using a UV grade DMD and a 365-nm UV
source to fabricate SU-8 based ferrule-top suspended-mirror de- In addition to the aforementioned methods, which are all proc-
vices on fiber endfaces. essed directly on the tips of the optical fibers, material transfer
methods have been developed extensively as indirect fabrication
2.2.4 Self-guiding photopolymerization approaches. These methods are based on transferring prefabri-
Self-guiding photopolymerization is a unique bottom-up cated nanostructures and nanomaterials from planar substrates
method for fabricating micro-optical structures on optical fiber to fiber endfaces, thus benefiting from the well-developed nano-
endfaces, which uses the guided light emerging from the fiber fabrication techniques available for the planar platform. Several
core to modify external photopolymerizable materials. After transfer methods have been proposed, each striving to ensure the
exposure and rinsing, a polymer tip is bonded firmly to the structural integrity and improve the fabrication yield. In the fol-
fiber as an extension of the fiber core.152 The geometry of the lowing sections, the material transfer methods were divided into
polymer tip can be controlled via optical and physicochemical two parts; namely, methods involving the direct transfer of the

nanomaterial and those involving the nanotransfer of nanofabrication process results in a low yield, which impedes mass
structures. production using this approach.
2.3.1 Direct transfer 2.3.2 Nanotransfer
To date, numerous nanomaterials, including quantum dots, Nanotransfer methods are based on transferring prefabricated
nanowires, and nanotubes, and 2D materials have been trans- nanostructures from planar substrates to the fiber tips, thus ben-
ferred directly to optical fiber endfaces through van der Waals efiting from the well-developed nanofabrication techniques
interactions. Different direct transfer methods are associated available for the planar platform. According to the sequences
with different nanomaterials dispersion systems, such as the of the transfer process, proposed nanotransfer approaches can
dip-coating method for transferring nanomaterials from solu- be categorized as either “release and attach” or “contact and
tions or suspensions,159 the wet-transfer method for transferring separate.”23
2D materials from a water surface,160 and the micromanipulation In the “release and attach” approach, the nanostructures on
method for precise transferal when forming heterostructures.36 the planar substrates are first detached from the substrates and
In recent decades, passively Q-switched and mode-locked then transferred onto the fiber endface. Smythe et al.166,167 ini-
fiber lasers have been fabricated using the direct transfer of tially demonstrated a “decal transfer” method to transfer metal-
materials or materials-polymer composites, with these materials lic nanostructures from silicon substrates to the optical fiber
serving as saturable absorbers, to the optical fiber endfaces.161–163 endfaces. In this case, Au patterns were first fabricated on sil-
Similarly, all-in-fiber photodetectors (FPDs) have also been pro- icon substrates using standard nanofabrication techniques be-
posed based on a pair of endface electrodes bonded with few- fore being stripped off by a composite polymer comprising
layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2 ) or CsPbBr3 –graphene hy- polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and a thin film of sacrificial thi-
brid structures.38,164 The interaction forces between the optical olene. Then, the optical fiber was aligned and pressed onto the
fiber endfaces and the transferred materials (especially some polymer film, resulting in the release of the thin thiolene film
hard films) are weak, leading to the unreliable performance of along with the Au patterns, which were adhered to the fiber end-
the fiber devices. To overcome this unreliability, Calero et al.165 face by van der Waals forces. After removing the sacrificial thi-
employed the point welding method to immobilize a film of olene film, optical fiber-based SERS probes with periodic Au
lithium niobite (LiNbO3 ) on a fiber endface. arrays were realized. The most difficult aspect of this approach
Although the direct transfer methods discussed above can fix is to compare and adjust the interaction forces between the sub-
a large area of nanomaterials on the fiber endfaces, it is chal- strates, the polymers, and the patterns to ensure the success of
lenging to control the size and shape of the materials accurately. the step-by-step transferal. To simplify the process, Whitesides
In response, Xiong et al.36 integrated a graphene-MoS2 -WS2 et al. conceived a transfer process using the nanoskiving tech-
heterostructure film with the electrodes on the optical fiber end- nique and the wet-transfer method. In the nanoskiving process,
face via a simple layer-by-layer micromanipulation transferal epoxy nanostructures were prepared by soft-lithography and
method, as shown in Fig. 8. This transfer method is a flexible, then coated with thin metallic films, before being embedded
precise, and low-cost approach that can also be used to transfer in epoxy and, finally, sectioned into slabs by an ultramicrotome.
nanostructures preprepared on a planar substrate to optical fiber The membranes floated on the water’s surface and were trans-
endfaces as well as other substrates. However, the complicated ferred to the optical fiber endfaces by wet-transfer. The metallic
Graphene PMMA-graphene
Tapered optical fiber probe
PMMA coating Wet tranferring Scratching
Separation
Cu Cu SiO2 SiO2
Transferring
Graphene PMMA-graphene Probe retreating
PMMA Heating
removal
Fig. 8 Schematic illustration of the micromanipulation method to transfer 2D materials onto the
optical fiber electrodes to fabricate photodetectors, taking graphene as an example.36 First, a
PMMA film is spin-coated on the graphene. After removing the original substrate, the PMMA-
graphene composite film is transferred to a glass slide via the wet-transfer method. A tapered
optical fiber is used to scratch and separate a certain shape of the PMMA-graphene film and
transfer it onto the electrodes on the optical fiber endface. Then, the fiber is heated to improve
the contact between the composite film and the fiber endface. Finally, the PMMA is removed, and
the graphene layer is bonded strongly to the fiber glass and the metal electrodes.

nanostructures on the fiber endface were obtained after the re-

3D miniature structures 2D functional surfaces
moval of the epoxy by PE.168 In contrast to discrete nanoarrays,
large-sized structures such as PCs can be transferred directly Nanomaterials
using a micromanipulation method. For example, Jung et al.169 Optomechanics
successfully transferred a PC slab to the fiber endface using an
FIB tool fitted with a micromanipulator. Similarly, Wang et al.170
released a PC nanocavity membrane from its original substrate
and attached it to the fiber endface via micromanipulation using
a tapered fiber. This type of process requires high flatness of Microlenses
Nanoarrays
both the optical fiber endfaces and the nanostructured mem-
branes so that sufficient van der Waals forces are obtained to
bond the nanofeatures.
For the “contact and separate” approach, the optical fiber
endfaces are first coated with an adhesion layer such as an epoxy
or ultraviolet (UV) curable resist and then aligned and placed
into contact with the nanostructures on planar substrates. Photoelectrical Optical
NEMS / MEMS
After the subsequent curing of the adhesion layer, the nanostruc- conversation modulation Electrical integration
tures are separated from the original substrate and bonded
strongly to the fiber endfaces.171 Thus, Shambat et al. demon- Fig. 9 The paradigm of multifunctional structures integrated on
strated a simple and rapid epoxy-based method for transferring optical fiber tips. The fiber tip devices were classified with respect
PC cavities to optical fiber endfaces. In this case, the optical to functional structure configuration, including (top left) the 3D
fiber cladding area was first coated with a layer of epoxy by miniature micro-optics structures, (top right) 2D textured nano-
a sharp electrical probe on a micromanipulator stage. After optics surfaces, and (bottom) electrodes integrated on fiber tips.
the optical fiber was aligned and contacted to the PC structure,
it was released gradually as the epoxy cures, with the PC struc-
ture adhering to the fiber endface.172,173 The micromanipulation applications in the fields of beam-shaping, collimation, focus-
method used here can prevent contamination of the optical fiber ing, signal processing, imaging, sensing, and particle trapping
core and protect the central PC cavities. To simplify the ap- among others. Considering that the optical structures integrated
proach, Jia and Yang174–177 transferred nanohole and nanoslit on the fiber tips have different sizes, shapes, dimensions, and
arrays from Au-coated templates to optical fiber endfaces by light–matter interaction approaches, they can be classified into
means of depositing epoxy layers on the entirety of the fiber two categories, those belonging to 3D miniature structures and
endfaces. those belonging to 2D functional surfaces.
As with epoxy, UV glue is a popular medium used to sep-
arate and transfer nanostructures to optical fibers, with this 3.1.1 3D miniature structures
method operating similarly to the NIL process to a certain The diversity of applications and the requirements of compact
extent.178 For example, Lin et al. demonstrated the fabrication optical systems have driven the development of 3D miniature
of plasmonic fiber probes via a UV glue-based structure trans- optical elements on the order of the fiber diameter. As discussed
feral method. After a spherical packed polystyrene (PS) tem- in the previous section, a variety of fabrication techniques have
plate had been prepared, the PS spheres were embedded in a thin been developed to integrate minimized optical components onto
UV glue layer precoated on the fiber endface and subsequently optical fiber tips, including FIB, fs laser ablation, chemical etch-
removed to construct the closely arranged nanocavities.179 With ing, and two-photon direct laser writing. The following short
the help of UV glue, Arce et al. successfully integrated an SOI sections review the typical minimized 3D miniature optical
photonics sensor on an optical fiber endface. Notably, a layer of structures integrated on fiber tips, which include optomechan-
wax was coated between the substrate and the structure, serving ical structures and micro-lenses.
as a sacrificial layer to facilitate the separate processes.180
Optomechanics. Fiber-optic optomechanics refers to the tech-
3 Structures and Applications nologies concerning the design and manufacture of micron-
The previous section introduced numerous studies in which the scale optomechanical structures on optical fibers. Typical
integration of micro- and nanostructures onto the flat tips of op- optomechanical structures include cantilevers and suspended
tical fibers has been proposed. Optical fiber devices possess membranes forming FP cavities.
many advantages, such as small size, light weight, electromag- Sensing. FP resonance cavities built on optical fiber tips have
netic immunity, and remote sensing capability. Herein, we re- been studied extensively to produce sensors for pressure, temper-
view the typical structures encountered on fiber tips and their ature, vibration, and acoustics in remote, space limited, and harsh
known and potential applications, which we have categorized environments. An FP cavity consists of two or more parallel re-
with respect to functional structure configuration, including flecting mirrors, in which interference arises due to the superpo-
the optical functionalization of optical fibers and electrical in- sition of both reflected and transmitted beams between the two
tegration on optical fibers (Fig. 9). parallel surfaces. Typical fiber-optic FP interferometers consist of
an optical fiber-cavity-thin film structure, in which capillaries,
coreless fibers, hollow fibers, certain fiber fusion structures
3.1 Optical Functionalization
(e.g., bubbles), and certain smart materials (such as microgels)
In recent decades, various optical structures have been fabri- are used to form resonant cavities covered with thin films such
cated on optical fiber tips successfully, covering diverse as silica films, metal films, and 2D materials films.44–48,50,181–183

Imaging. Iannuzzi et al.70,71,184 fabricated cantilever structures on proposed submicrometer dielectric phase masks on single-
fiber-tops by utilizing FIB and fs laser micromachining applied mode optical fiber endfaces for spatial beam intensity shaping
for contact mode AFM imaging. In addition, polymer-capped [Fig. 10(a)].140 Moreover, optical tweezers have been proposed
optical fiber tips were also investigated as FP interferometers, that involve the fabrication of microstructured optical fiber end-
with applications including ultrasound sensors, photoacoustic faces, which are created using FIB milling.68,72
transducers, and 3D endoscopy.185–189 For example, Guggenheim
et al.190 proposed an optical fiber probe for ultrasound detection 3.1.2 2D functional surfaces
based on a planoconcave polymer microresonator with strong op- The continuous development of nanoscience and nanotechnology
tical confinement (Q-factor > 105 ), which showed high ultra- makes addressing the feasibility of optics on the nanometer
sound sensitivity with an excellent broadband acoustic frequency scale inevitable. As mentioned above, a variety of fabrication
response and wide directivity. On the other hand, for ultrasound techniques have been explored to create nano-optical structures
excitation, multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-PDMS directly on optical fiber endfaces, such as FIB milling, EBL, NIL,
composites are a typical material used for photoacoustic and SA. In contrast to micro-optical devices, nanostructures with
transducers.191,192 Using this approach, Finlay et al. reported an discrete 2D planar nanofeatures can be transferred easily to the
all-optical ultrasound transducer consisting of two optical fibers surface of optical-fiber endfaces, using the so-called nanotransfer
that can generate and receive ultrasounds, respectively, and it was method. To date, several typical nano-optical structures have been
applied to real-time invasive medical imaging in vivo. The ultra- integrated on fiber endfaces successfully, such as nanomaterials,
sound was generated through the photoacoustic excitation of periodic nanoarrays, and metamaterials, which will be discussed
MWCNT-PDMS on the fiber endface via a pulsed laser, with in the following sections.
the returning ultrasound signal detected by a high-finesse FP cav-
ity on a single-mode optical fiber. A custom-built inner transsep- Nanomaterials integration. The useful properties of nanoma-
tal needle with a metallic septum was used to encapsulate and terials and the features of optical fibers can be combined to pro-
isolate the two optical fibers, which was then used within the duce an attractive platform for various applications, such as
beating heart of a pig to provide real-time views of the cardiac lasing and sensing.
tissue.193 Other than the above examples that used a single fiber Lasing. Pulsed fiber lasers have been applied in fields ranging
for excitation or reception of an ultrasound, Ansari et al. demon- from optical frequency metrology to nonlinear wavelength con-
strated a miniature forward-viewing 3D endoscopic probe, which version and from nonlinear microscopy to investigating the dy-
consisted of a coherent optical fiber bundle with a mirror- namic evolution of solitons.199–202 Set et al.163 presented the first
polymer-mirror FP ultrasound sensor at its endfaces. The sensor passively mode-locked fiber lasers based on a carbon nanotube
comprised 50,000 individual elements within the 3.2-mm outer (CNT) saturable absorber. Since then, passively Q-switched and
diameter of the probe, affording fine spatial sampling and mode-locked fiber lasers have been integrated on optical fiber
high-resolution photoacoustic images.187 endfaces using various saturable absorbing nanomaterials,
Moreover, in order to identify specific substances accurately, including NPs, CNTs, graphene, topological insulators (e.g.,
FP interferometers built at optical fiber tips can be integrated with Bi2 Te3 , Bi2 Se3 , Sb2 Te3 ), transition metal dichalcogenides,
multiple kinds of nanomaterials, thus combining the characteris- black phosphorus, and material composites.126,160–162,203–213
tics of the nanomaterials and the features of FP cavities, which Taking graphene as an example, the interband optical absorption
will be discussed further in Sec. 3.1.2. Optical fiber-based in zero-gap graphene can be easily saturated under strong
MEMS/NEMS devices were also investigated, which will be excitation due to Pauli blocking. Following this principle,
discussed in Sec. 3.2.1. Bao et al.160 demonstrated a mode-locked fiber laser for the gen-
eration of ultrashort soliton pulses within the telecommunica-
Microlenses. Lens systems are an integral component of appli- tions band, using atomic layer graphene as a saturable absorber.
cations involving beam-shaping, collimation, focusing, and cou- Chemosensing. Further, nanomaterials including metals, metal
pling and are frequently subject to restrictions relating to their oxides, their composites, as well as low-dimensional materials
size, shape, and dimensions, owing to the limitations of lens fab- such as CNT, graphene, and graphene oxides have been imple-
rication techniques. Microlenses are miniaturized lenses, typi- mented for fiber-optic physical, chemical, and biological
cally involving parameters on the micrometer scale. In recent sensors.15,117,118,127,128,159,214–225 Incorporating the principles of
decades, microlenses with various lens designs have been inte- Fresnel reflection, interferometers, and surface plasmon reso-
grated successfully onto optical fiber tips. This has been realized nance (SPR), respectively, various nanomaterial films have been
for lens designs including planoconvex-lenses, biconvex-lenses, integrated onto fiber tips, thus demonstrating chemical sensors
spherical lenses, toric lenses, and multilens composite structures, tailored to the detection of specific gases, VOCs, and heavy
to name just a few (Fig. 10).132 The integration of small high- metal ions.15,214,226 Predominantly, these fiber-based sensors ex-
performance microlenses onto optical fibers requires submicrom- ploit the sensing characteristics of the nanomaterials, which
eter alignment accuracy relative to the fiber core, making it dif- eventually affect the optical structure of the optical fiber sensing
ficult to transfer the microlenses to the fiber tip precisely. system.
Therefore, most microlenses are processed directly on the fiber Within the last decade, toxic gases (e.g., NH3 , H2 S, NO2 ,
endface using methods such as FIB milling, chemical etching, CO2 ) and flammable gases (e.g., CH4 , H2 ) have been monitored
3D direct laser writing, and NIL.56,59,69,133,136,139,194–198 As an exam- using these optical fiber-based chemical sensors that comprise
ple, Gissibl et al.142 demonstrated the complete process chain for sensitive nanomaterial films on fiber tips.215–224 For example,
high-performance multilens objectives on fiber endfaces with nanofilms of graphene oxide (GO)-based nanohybrids and
sizes of ∼100 μm, indicating its potential application in the fields porous graphene, as well as Fe3 O4 -graphene composite-coated
of beam shaping, endoscopy, illumination, imaging, inspection, optical fiber tips, have been investigated for the detection of am-
and microscopy on the micrometer scale. The same research team monia (NH3 ) at room temperature.222,223,227 Elsewhere, ZnO NPs

(a1) (a2) (a)

(a3) EXPERIMENT (b)
(a4) EXPERIMENT
2 1.0
z = 5.00 mm z = 5.00 mm
Normalized intensity
y-coordinate (mm)
0.8
1
0.6
0
0.4
-1
0.2
-2 0.0
-2 -1 0 1 2 -2 -1 0 1 2
x-coordinate (mm) x-coordinate (mm)
(b1) (b3) (b4) (c1)
(b5)
(b2)
(c2)
Fig. 10 Micro-optical elements integrated on optical fiber tips. (a) Phase masks on fiber endfaces
for spatial beam intensity shaping. (a1), (a2) SEM images of a diffractive optical element on an
optical fiber endface. (a3), (a4) Measured intensity distributions for (a3) the doughnut-shaped and
(a4) top-hat-shaped diffractive optical elements.140 Copyright 2016, Optical Society of America.
(b) High RI Fresnel lens on a fiber endface for efficient light focusing. (b1), (b2) SEM images
of the Fresnel lens on a fiber. (b3), (b4) Light intensity distributions of (b3) a bare single-mode
fiber and (b4) a fiber with Fresnel lens. (b5) The corresponding intensity profiles of the light in-
tensity distributions.194 Copyright 2016, Optical Society of America. (c) Suspended polymer micror-
ings on a multicore fiber endface for multiple gas sensing. (c1) SEM image of the optical tentacle
on the fiber endface. (c2) Cycle tests for the sensing reversibility of the optical tentacle in three
types of vapor.147 Copyright 2020, Optical Society of America.
have been embedded into a poly-methyl-methacrylate (PMMA) on fiber tips to produce a guided mode resonance structure.
matrix and coated on the fiber tip for sensing H2 S (at concen- The structure was able to detect ethylene and methanol vapors
trations ranging from 1 to 5 ppm) at room temperature.221 with sensitivities of 0.92 and 1.37 pm∕ppm, respectively.231
Furthermore, a lutetium bisphthalocyanine (LuPc2 ) dispersed Elsewhere, optical fiber VOC sensors based on porous silica
mesostructured silica film has been coated on a fiber tip, which xerogels have been reported using the sol–gel process, with the
was sensitive to NO2 in the ppm range.224 Sensitive layers of Pd, resulting sensors showing sensitivity toward dichloromethane,
Pd-Y, Pt-WO3 , Pd capped alloys, and nanostructured α-MoO3 acetone, and cyclohexane.232
[Fig. 11(a)] have been coated both on fiber endfaces and fiber Beyond sensing gas molecules, various nanomaterial deco-
resonance structures, creating high sensitivity hydrogen rated fiber-optic sensors have been explored in relation to heavy
sensors.215–218,220,228,229 metal ion (e.g., Hg2þ , Mg2þ , Pb2þ , Cd2þ ) detection in liquid
Similarly, VOC optical fiber sensors have been demon- solutions. For instance, by immobilizing the organic fluoro-
strated. For example, a zeolite thin film-coated spherical optical phore Rhod-5N on the fiber tip, fluorescent sensors for the de-
fiber FP cavity was investigated for sensing isopropanol, form- tection of mercury ions (Hg2þ ) with a limit as low as 0.3 ppb in
aldehyde, and their mixtures by monitoring the wavelength shift aqueous solution have been developed.233
of FP interference, which was induced in response to the mol- Biosensing. Metallic NPs have been fabricated and transferred
ecules of the VOCs being adsorbed onto the zeolite film.230 to fiber tips for biosensing. For example, an LSPR sensor has
Alternatively, a nanopatterned GO-TiO2 film was fabricated been fabricated using spherical Au NPs on an optical fiber tip,

Fig. 11 Optical fiber-based SERS probes. (a) Schematic depiction of the measurement setup for
characterizing an SERS probe. Inset: SEM image of an array of Au optical antennas on a fiber
endface.166 Copyright 2009, American Chemical Society. (b) SEM image of the Ag-coated nano-
pillar array on a fiber endface used for SERS.96 Copyright 2012, Optical Society of America.
(c) SEM image of nanoscale honeycomb structures on a fiber endface for SERS.66 Copyright
2005, Optical Society of America. (d) SERS-on-a-tip probes based on a nanoarray on an optical
fiber endface.145 (d1) Schematic illustration of the mechanism for Raman scattering enhancement.
(d2), (d3) SEM image of the cross-spike array on an optical fiber tip. Copyright 2020, WILEY-VCH
Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.
which was applied for the detection of antibody–antigen reac- using illumination via a TiO2 -coated single-mode fiber and
tions with a detection limit of ∼2 pg∕mL.117 Recently, as shown compressed sensing acquisition. The TiO2 -coated fiber endface
in Fig. 11(b), Sciacca and Monro118 exploited different metallic was a multiple-scattering surface that produced randomly struc-
NPs (Au and Ag), which have distinct LSPR signatures with tured, but deterministic, speckle patterns to illuminate the target
limited overlap, achieving multiplexed biosensing on a single object. Using a single photodetector to collect the scattered
optical fiber probe. light, the images of the object can be reconstructed from the
Several studies have proposed optical fiber-based SERS wavelength dependence of the speckle patterns and the total
probes produced by depositing metallic NPs onto the fiber light of the object.240
tips.119,234–237 Recently, a double-substrate “sandwich” structure
was proposed for fiber SERS detection. First, Ag NPs were fab- Nanoarrays integration. As discussed in Sec. 2, metallic nano-
ricated using the fiber surface as the SERS substrate, and then arrays with various nanofeatures have been fabricated on fiber
the fiber probe was immersed in a solution containing a mixture endfaces, including periodic, quasiperiodic, or random distribu-
of Ag NPs and target analyte molecules. The Ag NP structures tions of nanopillars, nanodots, nanoholes, nanodisks, and nano-
on the fiber and in the solution randomly sandwich the analyte gratings. These devices have been demonstrated in applications
molecules in between, which enhances the electromagnetic field in numerous fields, including chemical and biological sensing,
and thus produces the SERS signal. By exploiting this principle, beam operations, nonlinear photonics, and optical tweezers. It is
the highly sensitive detection of R6G, proteins lysozyme and notable that, metasurfaces (MSs), as 2D artificial electromag-
cytochrome c has been demonstrated [Fig. 11(c)].159,235 netic media on the subwavelength scale, can guide and control
Notably, a variety of approaches for fiber-optic sensing the propagation of electromagnetic waves by engaging reso-
applications have been explored on side-polished D-shaped nance excitations such as localized plasmonic modes.241–243
fibers, unclad fibers, tapered fibers, and fiber Bragg gratings, The integration of MSs and optical fiber technologies facilitates
benefiting from the long matter–environment interaction the control of light using nanoscale arrays on the fiber endface,
distance.15,23,114,238,239 which can be applied in the fields of communications, signal
Imaging. Nanomaterials-coated fiber endfaces can be regarded processing, imaging, as well as sensing.
as multiple-scattering tips for imaging applications such as mi- Sensing. Light–matter interaction occurring in subwavelength
croendoscopy. Shin et al. demonstrated 2D single-pixel imaging metallic nanostructures can be enhanced by several orders of

magnitude via LSPR. Therefore, every alteration at the sensor polymerization and subsequent metallization to fabricate three
surface, such as changing the RI, temperature, or the binding types of nanoarrays on the endfaces of optical fibers, presenting
of molecules, results in the resonant wavelength(s) shifting. a fiber-optic SERS probe for the rapid detection of bacteria. The
According to this principle, numerous optical fiber-based probes showed a detection limit of R6G of 10−7 mol∕L, while
RI sensors for the quantitative analysis of chemical reactions the enhancement factor was measured as 1300, which was then
and biological interactions have been demonstrated, based applied for rapid SERS detection of live Escherichia coli cells
on arrays of metallic nanodisks,87 nanodots,86,113 nano- with Raman integration time ranging from milliseconds to sec-
holes,76,77,175,176,244–246 nanoslits and nanogratings,95,174,247–249 nano- onds. Consales et al.257 used phase-gradient plasmonic MS on
pillars and nanorods,250,251 nanorings,89 nanotrimers,252 and the optical fiber tip to detect biomolecular interactions with a
metal–dielectric nanocrystals.88,112,121 For example, Jia et al.174 limit of detection of the order of a few ng mL−1.
constructed plasmonic optical fibers by transferring patterned Beam shaping and operation. In addition to the nanostructures
metal nanostructures onto optical fiber endfaces, which showed mentioned above, metallic nanogratings on optical fiber endfa-
narrow linewidths (6.6 nm) and a high figure of merit (60.7). ces exhibit unique optical properties due to the surface plasmon
The plasmonic fiber probe was first characterized as an RI sen- polaritons that result from the light confined in optical fibers
sor using different concentrations of NaCl solution with a trans- interacting with the subwavelength nanograting. These nano-
mission sensitivity of 595 nm per refractive index unit. Then, the gratings can be utilized as optical filters,258,259 amplifiers,258 po-
probe performed label-free and real-time biosensing using the larizers,85 beam splitters,107 and metallic Fresnel zone plates,260
immunoassay of the antigen–antibody, revealing a detection as well as in applications requiring waveguide coupling,106
limit of 8.5 pg mm−2 . Recently, Aliberti et al.253–255 integrated Bessel beam generation,74 wavelength-division-multiplexing
microgels onto a plasmonic nanohole array prefabricated on signal monitoring,81 and wavelength-dependent off-axis direc-
a fiber endface, which concentrated the target molecule and thus tional beaming.261 In addition to that, meta-fiber tips are also
enhanced the optical response. widely demonstrated for beam shaping and operation. For ex-
Other than via the LSPR principle, nanostructures integrated ample, Principe et al.78 proposed a phase-gradient plasmonic MS
on fiber endfaces have been applied as chemo- and biosensors integrated on a fiber tip [Fig. 12(a)], enabling an impinging
based on SERS. In general, the SERS effect can lead to a beam to be guided in desired directions. A 50-nm Au layer with
millionfold enhancement of the Raman scattering intensity different rectangular nanoholes was patterned in the plane of
for molecules, which is attributed to either the electromagnetic the fiber endface. By tuning the nanohole sizes appropriately
enhancement or the chemical interaction between the SERS ac- to correspond to the resonance frequency, an arbitrary phase
tive surface and the attached target molecules. In recent decades, (within the full 2π range) can be induced in the transmitted/re-
optical fiber-based SERS probes have been exploited by inte- flected components with suitable polarization. Specifically,
grating various kinds of nanoarrays, including periodic arrays interactions between ordinary and anomalous beams can be
of nanoscale optical antennas [Fig. 11(a)],166 nanorods and realized by adjusting the angles of the prototype according to
nanopillars [Fig. 11(b)],96 nanoholes,73 nanocavities,179 and hon- the array-induced phase-matching mechanism. This MT con-
eycombs [Fig. 11(c)],66 as well as randomly distributed arrays of figuration was applied for beam polarization and phase gradient
nanorods,256 NP clusters,120 and replicas of nanotemplates.102,109 control.262 Similarly, Yang et al.263 reported an optical metalens
Recently, as shown in Fig. 11(d), Kim et al.145 used two-photon patterned on the core area of a PCF endface to be used for light
(a1) Ordinary (a2) (b)

t
Anomalous Phase gradient

n ext x
n fiber Input β
Fiber
r
z Meta-
x Output γ surface
Metasurface (a3) z
Input α
Incident ly
Output δ
y
beam h
L1 45°
z
y L2
lx x
x Single-mode fiber core Fiber
Fig. 12 Metasurfaces on optical fiber tips. (a) An optical fiber MT for beam steering and coupling.
(a1) Schematic view of the MT with a plasmonic MS fabricated on the endface. (a2) Illustration of
the MT operating principle. (a3) Geometry of the rectangular nanoaperture realized in an Au
layer.78 Copyright 2016, Springer Nature. (b) Schematic illustration of an MS-covered optical fiber
tip for all-optical signal modulation based on coherent absorption. The insets are SEM images of
the device, black scale bar: 100 μm, gray scale bar: 1 μm. Copyright 2018, Springer Nature.

focusing at communications wavelengths, which showed a using very low in-trap intensities. Similarly, Gelfand et al.272
maximum enhanced optical intensity as large as 234% at the built a double nanohole aperture on an Au-coated endface of
focal point of the lens. Moreover, Xomalis et al.264 reported a a nontapered optical fiber, demonstrating the trapping and
fully fiberized and packaged optical switching meta-fiber device monitoring of individual 20- and 40-nm diameter PS spheres
based on coherently controlled absorption [Fig. 12(b)]. Within (Fig. 13). To improve the mode matching and optical coupling
a coherent fiber network, logical functions of XOR, NOT, of the plasmonic structure, Saleh et al.273 designed a fiber optic
and AND were performed at wavelengths between 1530 and plasmonic tweezer with subwavelength coaxial geometry,
1565 nm, indicating potential in the field of coherent and quan- which was fabricated on a fiber endface and can trap sub-
tum information networks. 10-nm dielectric particles.
Optical tweezers. Optical tweezers have been instrumental for Imaging. In the field of imaging, optical aberrations and the
manipulating micro- and NPs accurately and noninvasively. trade-off between transverse resolution and depth of focus are
Conventional optical tweezers are used typically to trap and technological challenges. Pahlevaninezhad et al.274 integrated a
manipulate micron-scale objects, while they are incapable of metalens into a fiber-based nano-optic endoscope to modify the
trapping nanoscale objects directly. This is because trapping phase of incident light at the subwavelength level, realizing
NPs requires an ultrahigh optical power to increase the optical near diffraction-limited imaging by negating nonchromatic
forces, which leads to photothermal issues. Moreover, owing to aberrations.
the diffraction limit, the size of the optical trap is often hundreds
of times greater than the size of NPs. To overcome the weak 3.2 Electrical Integration
optical forces and photothermal issues accompanying conven-
tional optical tweezers, plasmonic optical tweezers, which have Owing to the limitations of the material characteristics of
strong field gradients that can trap and manipulate NPs with optical fibers (most often SiO2 ), they do not possess electronic
lower optical power levels, have been developed.265–269 Recently, and optoelectronic functions, which limits their application.
plasmonic optical tweezers have been integrated on the endfaces In the 2000s, researchers tried to integrate different materials
of optical fibers, enabling the 3D manipulation of trapped nano- and microstructures into optical fiber configurations while
scale particles.270 In pioneering work proposed by Berthelot drawing the fiber, making fibers that can see, hear, sense, and
et al.,271 a bowtie-shaped plasmonic aperture was fabricated communicate.1–12 This field of “multimaterial fibers” arouses
at the endface of a tapered Au-coated optical fiber, demonstrat- great industrial interest but also faces some technological chal-
ing near-field nanotweezers for 3D optical trapping, manipula- lenges. In this section, we discuss several recently proposed de-
tion, and trapping status monitoring of individual 50-nm vice designs for electrical integration on optical fiber endfaces,
dielectric particles. The trapped objects were able to be moved which use commercially available standard optical fibers and
over distances measuring tens of micrometers in several minutes simpler fabrication methods.
Fig. 13 Optical tweezers based on a double nanohole on the fiber endface.272 (a) SEM image of
the active region of the fiber. (b) SEM image of the finished double nanohole milled in the active
region of the fiber. (c) Schematic illustration of the characterization setup of the optical tweezers.
(d), (e) Trapping events for individual 40- and 20-nm diameter PS spheres, respectively, which are
detected via the change in transmission. Copyright 2014, Optical Society of America.

Then, a film of few-layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2 ) was

(a) Lorentz force
(b)
n t
Ma
gn bonded directly to the fiber electrode [Fig. 15(a)], demonstrating
Cu
r re etic
fie
ld
an all-in-FPD with a photoresponsivity of ∼0.6 A W−1 at an in-
cident light power of ∼4.4 nW. Owing to the spatial asymmetry
of the electrodes, the FPD worked at zero bias. To improve pho-
todetection performance, FPDs with integrated perovskites-
Capillary
graphene hybrid structures have been proposed, as shown in
Fig. 15(b). Aided by the high carrier mobility inside graphene
Electrodes Optical fiber and the high photosensitivity of perovskites, the FPD showed a
photoresponsivity as high as 2 × 104 A W−1 .164
However, these FPDs can only detect visible light because of
Fig. 14 NEMS on fiber tips. (a) Schematic of the optical fiber the limitations of the materials, hindering their application at
magnetometer based on a graphene NEMS. (b) Microscope im- communication frequencies. To resolve this issue, Xiong et al.36
age of the endface of the fiber sensor. deployed a simple layer-by-layer transfer method to create a
microscale multilayer graphene-MoS2 -WS2 heterostructure
3.2.1 NEMS on fiber film on fiber tip electrodes [Fig. 15(c)]. Due to the strong light
absorption and the built-in electric field of the heterostructure,
Optical NEMSs are optical systems with adjustable or control- the FPD exhibits an ultrahigh photoresponsivity of
lable mechanical components and are widespread in the fields of ∼6.6 × 107 A W−1 and a relatively fast response time of ∼7 ms
sensing and communications. Since the discovery of graphene, at a wavelength of 400 nm. Moreover, the type-II staggered
with its unique electronic and mechanical properties, several in- band alignments in the MoS2 -WS2 heterostructure enables
vestigations have explored the integration of graphene NEMS the FPD to sense infrared light, displaying a photoresponsivity
on optical fiber tips. As shown in Fig. 14, Zheng et al.67 dem- of ∼17.1 A W−1 at 1550 nm. Recently, a 2D covalent organic
onstrated a miniature optical fiber current sensor based on a qua- framework (COF)-graphene film was successfully integrated
sistatic graphene NEMS. The optical fiber was etched by an HF- onto fiber electrodes using a similar approach, with the final
water solution, forming a hole in the center of the fiber tip due to structure utilized for gas sensing applications [Fig. 15(d)].37
the faster etching speeds at the core area. Subsequently, We envision an all-in-fiber phototransistor with a three-
a pair of Au electrodes was fabricated on opposite sides of electrode configuration on the fiber tip, consisting of a pair of
the hole, which was covered by a free-standing graphene mem- drain-source electrodes and a transparent back gate electrode,
brane. Due to the negative thermal expansion effect of graphene, which can adjust the semiconductor properties by controlling the
the shape of the graphene membrane changed with the current- gate voltage. This configuration should satisfy applications in
induced variation of temperature, which was detected using the both photoelectrical conversion and electro-optical modulation.
reflection spectra of the sensor. An equivalent device configu-
ration has been demonstrated for magnetic field sensing based Photoelectrochemical analysis. The photoelectrochemical
on the Lorentz force.275 Similarly, Liu et al.49 fabricated an all- (PEC) process refers to the photoelectrical conversion of photo-
in-fiber current-driven Lorentz force magnetometer based on an active materials under illumination that forms electron–hole
NEMS consisting of a fiber-capillary-graphene-gold hybrid pairs at their interface, which will cause the oxidation–reduction
structure. The difference is that the graphene membrane was reaction of the molecules or ions.281 Owing to their light-guiding
used principally to support a 100-nm-thick Au layer, which properties, optical fibers are an ideal platform for monitoring
has a higher light reflection ratio, lower resistance, and better PEC reactions. For example, Esquivel et al. developed a TiO2 -
repeatability. The shape of the suspended graphene-gold- based photoanode on the surface of a semiconductive modified
composite membrane changed with the applied Lorentz force, optical fiber, thus allowing the construction of a PEC reactor via
which was related to the propagating current in the magnetic an internally illuminated approach. Using this configuration,
field. By monitoring the reflection spectra of the sensor, the the electro-Fenton photoelectrocatalytic oxidation process was
change in the magnetic field was detected with a sensitivity studied to achieve total color removal of the azo dye Orange II
of 0.64 pm∕mT and a response time of ∼0.1 s. (15 mg L−1 ) and a 57% removal of total organic carbon within
60 min of the degradation time.282 In addition, electro-optical
3.2.2 Photoelectrical conversion
nanoprobes based on tapered optical fibers may have application
The integration of optoelectronic materials onto optical fibers is prospects in single-cell analysis.283
an effective way to overcome the limitations inherent to optical
fiber materials. Recently, various kinds of photoelectric materi- 3.2.3 Optical modulation
als, such as quantum dots, nanotubes, perovskites, 2D materials, The light propagating through a certain material can be modu-
organic optoelectronic materials, and multiple-material hetero- lated by external environmental factors, such as electric fields,
structures, have been exploited for on chip phototransistors, optical fields, magnetic fields, temperature, and mechanical
photodetectors, sensors, and solar cells among others.276–280 strain.284,285 The small core and the engineerable endface or
sidewall of optical fibers can offer tight optical confinement
Photodetection. Similar to on-chip configurations, fiber- for enhancing light–material interactions, thus making optical
based photodetectors have been demonstrated successfully. fibers an ideal platform on which to develop modulators and
As mentioned in Sec. 2.1.2, Chen et al.38 developed a simple lasers.17,286,287
approach for fabricating electrodes on fibers with relatively high
precision using lapping films and a tapered tungsten needle to Thermo-optic. With improvements to the processes used to
construct two electrodes on opposite fiber sidewalls and facets. attach electrodes on optical fiber tips, it is possible to develop

(a1) (a2) (b1) (b2) (b3)
MoS2
Ids (a3) (b4)
MoS2
Electrode Vds
Electrode
(c1) (c2) (c3) (d) Optical fiber
e-
-
e
e-
Au
COF-graphene
Fig. 15 All-in-FPD. (a) FPD integrated with a film of MoS2 .38 (a1) Schematic of the FPD with a
MoS2 film deposited above the electrodes. Inset: The cross-sectional part of the FPD and the
measurement setup. (a2) The optical microscope image of the FPD. The scale bar is 20 μm.
(a3) The SEM image of the FPD. The scale bar is 50 μm. Reproduced with permission from
the Royal Society of Chemistry. (b) High-sensitivity FPD with an integrated CsPbBr3 -graphene
hybrid structure.164 (b1), (b2) Schematic of the materials structures and device configuration of
the FPD. (b3), (b4) Photograph and microscope image of an FPD. The scale bar is 20 μm.
Copyright 2017, Optical Society of America. (c) Broadband FPD based on a graphene-
MoS2 -WS2 heterostructure.36 (c1), (c2) Schematic representation of the FPD. (c3) SEM image
of the FPD. The scale bar is 20 μm. Copyright 2018, WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA,
Weinheim. (d) Schematic view of the COF-graphene-based FPD, which can be used as a gas
sensor. Inset: The gas molecule absorption and charge transfer at the surface of the COF-
graphene film.37 Copyright 2020, WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.
electro-optic and thermo-optic modulators on the fiber tips. For the photoluminescence spin-readout return from the NV
example, Li et al. demonstrated the active modulation of the centers.288–291
nonlinear optical properties of a graphene-fiber-integrated de- In addition to advancements concerning the complexity of
vice by varying the temperature of a graphene sheet electrically. fiber tip electrode structures, high performance all-in-fiber de-
The device was fabricated by bonding multilayer graphene di- vices, such as modulators, phototransistors, and Hall magnetic
rectly onto a pair of fiber tip electrodes, with the result that they field sensors, will be developed in the future.
acted as a nanoheater as well as an adjustable saturable absorber.
By tuning the applied electrical current from 0 to 9 mA, the
temperature of the graphene was altered from ∼300 to ∼900 K, 4 Conclusions and Outlook
thus modifying the nonlinear optical absorption of the graphene LOF devices have made great progress so far in almost all as-
from 2.3% to 0.9%. This graphene-based optical modulator was pects, ranging from theoretical calculation and device configu-
incorporated into a fiber laser circuit to demonstrate the control- ration design to fabrication techniques and measuring methods,
lable fiber laser’s operation state (mode-locked or continuous- with the ultimate aim of realizing integrated and miniaturized
wave) and pulse. all-fiber systems. Growing technological demands bring great
opportunities to explore new approaches for fiber functionaliza-
Magneto-optic. The electron spin of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) tion and help the as-yet-unresolved challenges to be sur-
color centers in diamonds enables the highly sensitive detection mounted. The main challenge is to develop mass production
of weak magnetic fields, which can be manipulated by a fre- processes and equipment for the integration of materials and
quency-modulated microwave field and initialized via laser structures on the platform of optical fiber endfaces, with reduced
radiation from the fiber core. Following this principle, Fedotov costs and increased yields. Meanwhile, the integration of certain
et al. reported optical fiber magnetic field imaging probes by complex traditional photonic and optoelectronic systems is
attaching diamond microcrystals with NV centers to the fiber another significant obstacle.
tip and integrating microwave transmission lines along the As regards future prospects, several trends and directions that
fibers. The 2D magnetic field was imaged by the probe, using show particular promise in this field include:

– First, multifunctional integration of traditional optoelec- 16. H. Chen et al., “Review and perspective: sapphire optical fiber
tronic devices, both active and passive, onto fiber tips, thereby cladding development for harsh environment sensing,” Appl.
achieving a complete all-fiber module for light generation or Phys. Rev. 5(1), 011102 (2018).
signal processing. 17. E. J. Lee et al., “Active control of all-fibre graphene devices with
electrical gating,” Nat. Commun. 6, 6851 (2015).
– Second, the integration of complex electrode structures
18. J. D. Zapata et al., “Efficient graphene saturable absorbers on
and auxiliary circuits on optical fiber endfaces, which can be D-shaped optical fiber for ultrashort pulse generation,” Sci.
applied as high-speed optical modulators, phototransistors, Rep. 6, 20644 (2016).
and sensors. 19. J. L. Kou et al., “Microfiber-based Bragg gratings for sensing
– Third, the integration of free space optical systems on fiber applications: a review,” Sensors 12(7), 8861–8876 (2012).
endfaces, thus realizing multiple functional all-fiber systems 20. S. Pissadakis, “Lab-in-a-fiber sensors: a review,” Microelectron.
such as ultrathin imaging systems or spectrum conversion Eng. 217, 111105 (2019).
systems. 21. M. Pisco and A. Cusano, “Lab-on-fiber technology: a roadmap
– Fourth, the integration of micro- and nanostructures on the toward multifunctional plug and play platforms,” Sensors 20(17),
endface of specific optical fibers (e.g., PCFs), realizing diversi- 4705 (2020).
22. Q. Wang and L. Wang, “Lab-on-fiber: plasmonic nano-arrays for
fied functions that an ordinary optical fiber does not possess.
sensing,” Nanoscale 12(14), 7485–7499 (2020).
– Finally, the preparation of functional modules with re- 23. P. Vaiano et al., “Lab on fiber technology for biological sensing
duced sizes onto the subwavelength-scale optical fiber tips applications,” Laser Photonics Rev. 10(6), 922–961 (2016).
for cell-level detection and in vivo biochemical monitoring. 24. A. Ricciardi et al., “Lab-on-fiber technology: a new vision for
chemical and biological sensing,” Analyst 140(24), 8068–8079
Acknowledgments (2015).
25. G. Kostovski, P. R. Stoddart, and A. Mitchell, “The optical fiber
This work was sponsored by the National Natural Science tip: an inherently light-coupled microscopic platform for micro-
Foundation of China (61925502 and 61535005) and the and nanotechnologies,” Adv. Mater. 26(23), 3798–3820 (2014).
National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFA0303700 26. M. Consales, M. Pisco, and A. Cusano, “Lab-on-fiber technol-
and 2017YFA0700503). We thank Professor J. H. Chen for help ogy: a new avenue for optical nanosensors,” Photonic Sensors
in the preparation of the manuscript. The authors declare no 2, 289–314 (2012).
competing interests. 27. R. He et al., “Integration of gigahertz-bandwidth semiconductor
devices inside microstructured optical fibres,” Nat. Photonics
6, 174–179 (2012).
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Multifunctional Integration On Optical Fiber Tips: Challenges and Opportunities

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Review Article

Multifunctional integration on optical fiber tips:

1 Introduction optical fiber configurations in the fiber-drawing, with the

Advanced Photonics 064001-1 Nov∕Dec 2020 • Vol. 2(6)

micro/nanostructure integration, nanomaterials for building

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micromirror device (DMD) as a variable photomask, which pro-

(b) Patterns on polymer layer

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(a) Thin metal film Metal film is removed by etching

Polymer coated optical fiber Metallic pattern on the end-face

Metal coated optical fiber Polymer layer is cleaned away

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2.2.1 Self-assembly 2.2.2 CVD/PVD processing

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(a) Nano-position stage/ (b1) (b2) (b3)

(c1) (c2) (c3) (d1) (d2)

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nanostructures on the fiber endface were obtained after the re-

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(a1) (a2) (a)

(b1) (b3) (b4) (c1)

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(a1) Ordinary (a2) (b)

Anomalous Phase gradient

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Then, a film of few-layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2 ) was

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(a1) (a2) (b1) (b2) (b3)

(c1) (c2) (c3) (d) Optical fiber

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