Abstract
We present the design, fabrication and optical characterization of functional metamaterials for optical sensing of Hydrogen based on inexpensive self-assembly processes of metallic nanowires integrated in nanoporous alumina templates([37-42]). The optical properties of these materials strongly depend on the environmental concentration or partial pressure of hydrogen and can be used to develop fully optical sensors that reduce the danger of explosion. Optical metamaterials are artificial media, usually combining metallic and dielectric sub-wavelength structures, that exhibit optical properties that cannot be found in naturally occurring materials. Among these, functional metamaterials offer the added possibility of altering or controlling these properties externally after fabrication, in our case by contact with a hydrogen rich atmosphere. This dependency can be used to design([43-45]) and develop optical sensors that respond to this gas or to chemical compounds that contain or release hydrogen. In this paper we present some designs for hydrogen functional metamaterials and discuss the main parameters relevant in the optimization of their response.

Abstract
A low-computational intensive laser control approach is proposed for implementing an embedded control system, using pattern recognition by relevant principal component analysis for laser induced breakdown spectroscopy applications. The laser energy is directly related to the resulting spectral pattern and is determined by iterations in the feature space. Results show that single shot iterations until optimum energy can be significantly reduced by pattern recognition. A performance benchmark with minerals, alloys and pellets from material collected from a drill demonstrated an average of 50% improvement, significantly reducing sample deterioration and improving measurement safety.

Abstract
With the advent of personalized medicine, there is a movement to develop "smaller" and "smarter" microdevices that are able to distinguish similar cancer subtypes. Tumor cells display major differences when compared to their natural counterparts, due to alterations in fundamental cellular processes such as glycosylation. Glycans are involved in tumor cell biology and they have been considered to be suitable cancer biomarkers. Thus, more selective cancer screening assays can be developed through the detection of specific altered glycans on the surface of circulating cancer cells. Currently, this is only possible through time-consuming assays. In this work, we propose the "intelligent" Lab on Fiber (iLoF) device, that has a high-resolution, and which is a fast and portable method for tumor single-cell type identification and isolation. We apply an Artificial Intelligence approach to the back-scattered signal arising from a trapped cell by a micro-lensed optical fiber. As a proof of concept, we show that iLoF is able to discriminate two human cancer cell models sharing the same genetic background but displaying a different surface glycosylation profile with an accuracy above 90% and a speed rate of 2.3 seconds. We envision the incorporation of the iLoF in an easy-to-operate microchip for cancer identification, which would allow further biological characterization of the captured circulating live cells.

Abstract
First order off-axis fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) were fabricated in a standard single mode fiber (SMF-28e) through femtosecond laser direct writing. A minimum offset distance between the grating and core center of 2.5 mu m was found to create a multimode section, which supports two separate fiber modes (LP0,1 and LP1,1), each split into two degenerate polarization modes. The resulting structure breaks the cylindrical symmetry of the fiber, introducing birefringence (approximate to 10(-4)) resulting in a polarization dependent Bragg wavelength for each mode. Based on the modal and birefringence behavior, three off-axis FBGs were fabricated with 3.0, 4.5 and 6.0 mu m offsets from the core center, and then characterized in strain, temperature, and curvature. The tested off-axis FBGs exhibited a similar strain sensitivity of similar to 1.14 pm/mu epsilon and a temperature sensitivity of similar to 12 pm/C. The curvature and orientation angle were simultaneously monitored by analyzing the intensity fluctuation and the wavelength shift of the LP1,1 Bragg resonance. A maximum curvature sensitivity of 0.53 dB/m(-1) was obtained for the off-axis FBG with a 3.0 mu m offset.

Abstract

Abstract
Dissolved carbon dioxide (dCO2) evaluation is very important in many different fields. In this work, a new, integrated, colorimetric-optical fiber-based system for dCO2 monitoring in aquaculture industry was developed. The sensing chemistry is based on colorimetric changes of the used indicator—poly p-nitrophenol (pNPh)—in contact with CO2. Preliminary tests were done in a laboratory environment (calibration) and in a laboratory Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS) with controlled CO2 injection. The results have shown the suitability of the new sensor for assessing dCO2 dynamics in RAS and its fast detection of low dCO2 concentrations in an appropriate operation range.