Ponce-Alcántara, SalvadorMartínez-Pérez, PaulaPérez-Márquez, AnaMaudes, JonMurillo, NievesGarcía-Rupérez, Jaime2019-09-02Ponce-Alcántara , S , Martínez-Pérez , P , Pérez-Márquez , A , Maudes , J , Murillo , N & García-Rupérez , J 2019 , ' Stabilization of Polymeric Nanofibers Layers for Use as Real-Time and In-Flow Photonic Sensors ' , Sensors , vol. 19 , no. 18 , 3847 , pp. 3847 . https://doi.org/10.3390/s191838471424-3210researchoutputwizard: 11556/767Publisher Copyright: © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.In order to increase the sensitivity of a sensor, the relationship between its volume and the surface available to be functionalized is of great importance. Accordingly, porous materials are becoming very relevant, because they have a notable surface-to-volume ratio. Moreover, they offer the possibility to infiltrate the target substances on them. Among other porous structures, polymeric nanofibers (NFs) layers fabricated by electrospinning have emerged as a very promising alternative to low-cost and easy-to-produce high-performance photonic sensors. However, experimental results show a spectrum drift when performing sensing measurements in real-time. That drift is responsible for a significant error when trying to determine the refractive index variation for a target solution, and, because of that, for the detection of the presence of certain analytes. In order to avoid that problem, different chemical and thermal treatments were studied. The best results were obtained for thermal steps at 190 °C during times between 3 and 5 h. As a result, spectrum drifts lower than 5 pm/min and sensitivities of 518 nm/refractive index unit (RIU) in the visible range of the spectrum were achieved in different electrospun NFs sensors.13924105enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessjournal article10.3390/s19183847Nanofibers layersPolymersOptical sensorThermal treatmentRefractive indexNanofibers layersPolymersOptical sensorThermal treatmentRefractive indexAnalytical ChemistryInformation SystemsAtomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsBiochemistryInstrumentationElectrical and Electronic EngineeringFunding InfoThis work was supported by the Spanish government through the project TEC2015-63838-C3-1-ROPTONANOSENS and from the Basque government through the project KK-2019/00101 -µ4INDUSTRYThis work was supported by the Spanish government through the project TEC2015-63838-C3-1-ROPTONANOSENS and from the Basque government through the project KK-2019/00101 -µ4INDUSTRYhttp://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85071750399&partnerID=8YFLogxK