Fiber optic nanoprobes for biological sensing

Optical sensors have a large impact in the fields of life science research, drug discovery and medical diagnostics. The recent advances in nanotechnology and photonics have led to a new generation of nanotools, capable of probing even the single cell: it has already been demonstrated that nanobiosensors can detect biochemical targets and proteins inside living single cells. Here we provide a brief overview of the field of nanoprobes consisting of tapered, metal-coated optical fibers having nanosize tips, such as those which were originally developed for use in near-field optical microscopy. Moreover we present some preliminary results concerning the characterization of the experimental sensing system which exploits such nanoprobes for intracellular biomedical diagnostics. The feasibility of using the Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM) technique as a dynamic diagnostics tool with these nanoprobes has been demonstrated.