IOS offers our customers innovative technological solutions to real-world problems through a comprehensive products and services portfolio. IOS researchers have developed cutting-edge technologies, including fiber optic-based sensors for pressure, temperature, electromagnetic fields, and a wide variety of chemicals; acoustic emission sensors; advanced signal and image processing systems; specialty light sources; nonlethal weapons; and nondestructive visual and laser ultrasonic inspection systems.

IOS has demonstrated the feasibility of using a promising new type of microfluidic device to produce blood assay kits on a micro scale in a "biochip" format. The innovative microfluidic device is based on electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) technology, and offers the potential for lower fabrication costs, simplified operation, and lower sample volumes for a wide range of analytical targets.

Addressing the need for a commercially-available, online, in situ system that detects biofilm, IOS developed a portable monitoring system for screening bacterial fouling in dental unit water delivery lines and other medical fluid delivery systems. This innovative technique is based on the detection of autofluorescence due to the presence of characteristic biofilm markers.

As an alternative to surgical procedures, microwave hyperthermia has been clinically proven to be an effective, efficient and non-toxic method for treating tumors. Unfortunately, its use has been limited by the lack of an effective tool to monitor, and thereby control, the amount of heat distribution during microwave treatment of tumors. Applying its expertise in this area, IOS produced an advanced distributed optical fiber temperature (OFT) sensor to accurately monitor temperatures for hyperthermia tumor treatment. The optical fiber temperature (OFT) probe provides ten points of high-resolution temperature data in a single fiber, an efficient alternative to the thick bundles of arrayed single point temperature probes and expensive MRI thermometry that are required to provide distributed temperature monitoring in tissue.