In recent years, with the development of materials science and architectural art, ensuring the safety of modern buildings is the top priority while they are developing toward higher, lighter, and more unique trends. Structural health monitoring (SHM) is currently an extremely effective and vital safeguard measure. Because of the fiber-optic sensor’s (FOS) inherent distinctive advantages (such as small size, lightweight, immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI) and corrosion, and embedding capability), a significant number of innovative sensing systems have been exploited in the civil engineering for SHM used in projects (including buildings, bridges, tunnels, etc.). The purpose of this review article is devoted to presenting a summary of the basic principles of various fiber-optic sensors, classification and principles of FOS, typical and functional fiber-optic sensors (FOSs), and the practical application status of the FOS technology in SHM of civil infrastructure.

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As key components in life science, microfluidics devices play increasingly important roles in the fields of biomedicine, pharmaceuticals, and biology due to its high detection efficiency. Also, microfluidics devices have many applications in label-free detection, thanks to their low cost and ease of operation.Traditionally, microfluidic devices are fabricated with glass and silicon materials. As an alternative, polymer materials are commonly used in the fabrication of microfluidic devices for their lower cost, versatile fabrication methods, biocompatibility, and repeatability. In this review, the methods for fabricating polymer microfluidic systems are described in detail, including lithography, hot embossing and imprinting, soft lithography, laser ablation, 3D printing, and other technologies. In particular, the merits and demerits of each of the methods are discussed comprehensively. This review also focuses on the applications of polymer-based microfluidic systems in the areas of biology, medicine and production, typical application scenarios including blood, tumor cell and nucleic acid testing, oil adsorption detection, and pesticide detection. This review emphasizes the device preparation methods and application scenarios of polymer-based microfluidic systems and was expected to arise more extensive discussions in this field.

As the cousin of phosphorene, antimonene, i.e., two-dimensional Sb monolayer, aroused an intensive attention to its physical performance in recent years. In this paper, few-layer antimonene (FLA) nanosheets with thickness of 3∼6 nm were prepared by liquid phase exfoliation (LPE). The saturated absorption properties were measured using the Z-scan method. The single-and dual-wavelength mode-locked fiber lasers were demonstrated using erbium-doped fiber as a gain medium based on the antimonene saturable absorber. For the single-wavelength pattern, the pulse width of fundamental frequency was 1.73 ns with a frequency of 2.16 MHz. The maximal output power was 7.28 mW, corresponding to the maximal peak power of 1.92 W. In addition, the shortest pulse width of 953 ps was achieved with the high-order mode-locked laser. For the dual-wavelength laser, the two synchronous wavelengths at steady operation were 1561.3 and 1562.7 nm. The difference frequency of these two wavelengths (0.17 × 10 12 Hz) belongs to the terahertz waveband, which provides a powerful light source for the development of terahertz. Our results demonstrated that antimonene was an excellent nonlinear absorption material in mode-locked fiber laser and broadened this application in optics.