Thanks to the peculiarities of optical fiber and its ability to be combined with nanotechnology, precise and accurate measurements of the changes in optical properties (i.e., refractive index) of the medium surrounding the fiber are becoming possible with a high degree of performance. Thus, optical fiber sensors (OFSs) are increasingly finding applications in biochemistry and biomedicine. Here, all types of optical fiber refractometers are covered, and they are classified into three main groups: interferometers, grating‐based structures, and resonance‐based structures (the resonance is induced by coating the optical fiber sensor with a thin film). The performance of these different structures is compared by means of the most common parameters: sensitivity, full width at half minimum or maximum, figure of merit, and quality factor. The aim here is to provide a reliable and easy‐to‐use tool to compare the performance of the most recent developments on fiber optic refractometers.

中文翻译：

---

光纤折光仪的全面综述：迈向标准比较标准

由于光纤的特性及其与纳米技术相结合的能力，以高性能实现对光纤周围介质光学特性（即折射率）变化的精确，精确测量成为可能。因此，光纤传感器（OFS）在生物化学和生物医学中的应用越来越多。此处介绍了所有类型的光纤折光仪，并将其分为三大类：干涉仪，基于光栅的结构和基于共振的结构（共振是通过在光纤传感器上涂上一层薄膜来引起的）。通过最常见的参数比较这些不同结构的性能：灵敏度，最小或最大一半的全宽度，品质因数和品质因数。