Bioengineering of Long‐Period Fiber Grating for the Selective Detection of Female Sex Pheromone of <i>Helicoverpa armigera</i>

Global crop yields are reduced by ≈20–40% per year due to agricultural pests, whereas there is an urgent requirement to increase the level of food production due to the rapid growth of the world's population. In this regard, Helicoverpa armigera is one of the serious pests as it could damage more than 100 different crops across the world. Detection of pests like Helicoverpa armigera is, therefore, immensely important for the efficient production of food across the globe. Herein, a method has been described for the selective detection of female sex pheromone of pests like Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) with a suitably functionalized long‐period fiber grating (LPFG)‐based sensor. LPFG provides a suitable online monitoring platform for the attachment and identification of different chemical moieties needed for the specific detection of the pheromone. Higher‐order dispersed cladding mode (DCM) of LPFG has been used for this specific application. The specificity of these sensors has been established, and the detection limit of the developed optical sensors was found to be 7.6 μg L – 1 .