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The Photonic Engineering Group (TAP) of the University of Alcalá (Spain), in collaboration with the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Switzerland), it has designed optical fiber sensors capable of continuously monitoring large infrastructures, allowing detection with great precision and, most importantly, in advance, erosion or fissures in bridges, dams or railways. The results of this work have just been published in the magazine Optic letters.

«Although the popularity of fiber-optic distributed sensors is growing, they are now mainly used to detect leaks in pipelines and pipelines, as well as to prevent landslides that affect roads or railways.» But if a single one of these fibers is placed along the length of a bridge, for example, changes in the structure in any of the sensor points along the fiber will cause detectable changes in the light that moves through the fiber, which would allow to act preventively in the structure, increasing the security and reducing the maintenance costs ‘ , says Alejandro Domínguez, member of the Griffin Research Group.

Dominguez emphasizes that this type of sensors could also be used for areas like aerospace, «where it is important to know what is happening in every inch of the wing of an airplane, for example».

Also, faucet works to increase the number of sensor points in the fiber, which could allow the technology to expand into completely new areas, such as biomedical applications. In this sense, Domínguez points out that «the optical fibers could also be adapted to form intelligent tissues, where the sensors could be used to monitor the health of a person, helping in the early detection of diseases». For example, researchers envision that it might be possible to use these fiber optic sensors to detect the temperature deviations that are present in breast cancer. (Source: Universidad de Alcalá).