Absorption Measurement Using a Leaky Waveguide Mode

We propose an optical waveguide sensor using a leaky mode for absorption measurement of liquid samples. This sensor uses a single coupling prism. A cladding layer and a waveguide layer are directly deposited on the reflecting surface of the prism. The intensity of the internally reflected beam at an appropriate incident angle is very sensitive to the imaginary part of the sample attached to the surface of the waveguide layer. The sensitivity of this sensor is controlled by the thicknesses of both cladding and waveguide layers. We studied the performance of the sensor by numerical calculation.     

The study of electro-optical sensor based on slotted photonic crystal waveguide

A compact and sensitive electro-optical sensor based on slotted photonic crystal waveguide (S-PhCW) is demonstrated. The electro-optical sensor can be realized in photonic crystal (PhC) slabs of silicon in Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI). Nonlinear optical polymer is used as infiltration. By applying three-dimensional finite difference time domain (3D-FDTD), the sensitivity and quality factor of electro-optical sensor with different slotted waveguide width are calculated. In addition, sensitivity and the optical properties such as transmission spectrum and field distributions are compared between electro-optical sensor based on line defect photonic crystal waveguide (W1-PhCW) and that based on slotted photonic crystal waveguide (S-PhCW). Simulation results demonstrate that, compared with electro-optical sensor based on line defect photonic crystal waveguide, the sensitivity and quality factor is improved by 30 times and 6.6 times respectively in sensor based on slotted photonic crystal waveguide. Besides, the proposed PhC sensor devices have the advantage of a compact structure with the potential for monolithic integration with optical-to-electrical on-chip conversion and detection.     

Sensitivity enhancement in TE mode nonlinear planar optical waveguide sensor with metamaterial layer

The dispersion equation of the TE mode nonlinear planar optical waveguide with metamaterial layer was derived, and the sensitivity of the waveguide sensor was analyzed. The influences of structural parameters on the sensitivity of the waveguide sensor were investigated. We verify that the waveguide sensor with metamaterial layer can dramatically enhance the sensitivity compared with other waveguide sensors.     

Enhancement of sensitivity in optical waveguide sensors using left-handed materials

We show analytically that the sensitivity of an optical waveguide sensor can be dramatically enhanced by using a metamaterial with negative permittivity and permeability. The variation of the sensitivity of the proposed waveguide sensor with different parameters of the waveguide is studied. It is found that the sensitivity of the sensor increases with the increasing thickness of the metamaterial due to the surface polariton generation.     

Spiral-path high-sensitivity silicon photonic wire molecular sensor with temperature-independent response

We demonstrate a new silicon photonic wire waveguide evanescent field (PWEF) sensor that exploits the strong evanescent field of the transverse magnetic mode of this high-index-contrast, submicrometer-dimension waveguide. High sensitivity is achieved by using a 2 mm long double-spiral waveguide structure that fits within a compact circular area of 150 microm diameter, facilitating compatibility with commercial spotting apparatus and the fabrication of densely spaced sensor arrays. By incorporating the PWEF sensor element into a balanced waveguide Mach-Zehnder interferometer circuit, a minimum detectable mass of approximately 10 fg of streptavidin protein is demonstrated with near temperature-independent response.     

Active Optical Poly(vinylchloride) Thin-Film Waveguide Ion Sensor

The effectiveness of a proposed PVC (Poly(vinylchloride)) thin-film waveguide ion sensor with high sensitivity which is based on a polymer matrix to measure the concentration of various biochemical ions is assessed. The waveguide is made of PVC co-polymer matrix containing ionophore, dioctylphthalate and chromoionophore, and plays important roles both in light propagation and in selective ion sensing. To evaluate the efficiency of the sensor, standard calcium solution is applied. Results showed the proposed sensor to be very effective as an ion sensor. This active waveguide sensor has the advantages of utilizing both the molecular recognition technique and the waveguide detection technique.     

Performance study of a liquid-core Bragg fiber sensor in presence of a defect layer

Performance parameter of a Bragg fiber waveguide based resonant sensor in presence of a defect layer in cladding regions is theoretically studied. The Bragg fiber waveguide consists of a liquid-core surrounded by alternate high and low refractive indices materials in cladding regions. Reflectivity of the proposed waveguide based resonant sensor is formulated using transfer matrix method for a non-homogeneous multilayer cylindrical system. The waveguide shows a band gap region with a narrow defect mode in the band gap region under the considered wavelength range. Instead of taking a whole band gap as a sensing signal, here the defect peak is taken as the sensing signal. It is observed that the intensity of defect mode is more sensitive for core refractive index than the intensity of traditional band gap region (lobe). This study shows that the higher sensitivity can be achieved by creating the defect at a position in cladding region where the intensity of transmitted light lies between 40% and 90%. Presence of a defect layer is able to increase the detection accuracy of the sensor and, hence increase the overall performance of this sensor.     

Theoretical modeling of a nonlinear asymmetric metal-clad planar waveguide based sensors

The present paper deals with the theoretical modeling of a nonlinear asymmetrical metal-clad planar waveguide for sensor application to achieve high sensitivity. We take the appropriate field distributions for the proposed structure and impose the boundary conditions to derive the mode equation and other necessary formulae for the proposed sensor. The effect of nonlinearity on the sensitivity of the waveguide is studied. Also, we have compared our computed results with the results given for a similar sensor having five layers structure. It is observed that the sensitivity of the sensor is improved by introducing a nonlinear material in the cover medium.     

Silicon-Based Integrated Optic Pressure Sensor Using Intermodal Interference between TM-Like and TE-Like Modes

In this paper, a silicon-based integrated optic pressure sensor using an intermodal interference between the fundamental TM-like and TE-like modes is described. The sensor consists of a micromachined rectangular diaphragm and a straight polystyrene optical waveguide passing over the diaphragm. Its sensitivity is theoretically known to be strongly dependent on the position of the waveguide over the diaphragm. To experimentally investigate such dependence, we fabricated a sensor with a 1.2 mm 2 10 mm 2 20 w m diaphragm, over which waveguides were placed at 50 w m intervals. The measured phase sensitivity was 98 mrad/kPa for the waveguide nearest to the diaphragm edge. The measurement was also carried out for the other waveguides. As theoretically expected, the largest sensitivity was obtained for the waveguide nearest to the edge.     

A tunable gas sensor using an acoustic waveguide

A tunable gas sensor using surface acoustic waves (SAW) is described. It is designed on the basis of a waveguide delay line fabricated on a piezoelectric substrate made of 128° Y-cut LiNbO₃. A voltage applied between the waveguide and two electrodes causes a local change in the properties of the substrate near the waveguide and differently affects the sensor’s response to the vapors of various analytes. Some results of the experimental study of the sensor, which show the change in the selectivity under the effect of voltage, are presented. The analytes used for testing include a number of alcohols and deionized water. The possibilities for employing such a sensor in the sensor arrays of gas analyzers of the electronic nose type are discussed.     

Integrated optical proximity microsensor

This paper presents the design, simulation and experimental results of an integrated proximity sensor manufactured on silicon substrate. The sensor was designed for microrobotic applications like integration into a microgripper arm or detection of the position of gripper arms relative to an object. The structure is based on an SU8 polymeric optical waveguide splitted into three arms, integrated with a multielement photodetector on silicon substrate. Each element of the photodetector is a metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodiode with Ti/Al Schottky interdigitated electrodes.The operation principle of this sensor consists in the light coupling in the central arm of the optical waveguide, interaction with the object (reflection) of the radiation which exits from this principal arm, the coupling of the “affected” radiation which comes back through the end of the waveguide and its splitting into three arms of the optical waveguide. From the optical waveguide, the light is coupled in photodiode and the photogenerated carriers are collected to the electrodes giving the electrical signal which is read and processed in real time.The optimal parameters of the waveguide (width, thicknesses of the core and the claddings) of the photodetector and the coupling between them were defined by simulation, using FDTD and BeamProp method (Opti FDTD software). Our microsensor can detect the position of an object in the range of 0-300 μm, as position sensor and with high precision in the range of zero to twice the wavelength, as proximity sensor.     

Silicon-Based Integrated Optic Pressure Sensor Using Intermodal Interference between TM-Like and TE-Like Modes

In this paper, a silicon-based integrated optic pressure sensor using an intermodal interference between the fundamental TM-like and TE-like modes is described. The sensor consists of a micromachined rectangular diaphragm and a straight polystyrene optical waveguide passing over the diaphragm. Its sensitivity is theoretically known to be strongly dependent on the position of the waveguide over the diaphragm. To experimentally investigate such dependence, we fabricated a sensor with a 1.2 mm ×10 mm ×20 μm diaphragm, over which waveguides were placed at 50 μm intervals. The measured phase sensitivity was 98 mrad/kPa for the waveguide nearest to the diaphragm edge. The measurement was also carried out for the other waveguides. As theoretically expected, the largest sensitivity was obtained for the waveguide nearest to the edge.     

Lossy double negative guiding layer optical sensors

We proposed a three-layer waveguide as an optical sensor for homogeneous sensing applications. A guiding layer of the proposed structure is considered as lossy left-handed material (LHM) with simultaneously the complex negative electric permittivity ɛ and the complex negative magnetic permeability μ. We also assume a cladding layer to have an intensity-dependent refractive index. Sensitivity of the proposed optical waveguide sensor is derived and its dependence on different parameters of a waveguide is studied.     

Vertical input optical ring resonator with differential operation for optical sensor

A novel waveguide ring resonator optical sensor with two resonant wavelength channels is proposed for a refractive index measurement of a test sample placed on the sensor substrate and its performance characteristics are investigated analytically and numerically. The waveguide device consists of a ring resonator, a split-ring-shaped loop waveguide, and a vertical input/output grating coupler, in which the loop waveguide acts as an additional resonator and provides another output wavelength channel of the sensor. The differential detection between the two wavelength channels enables the highly sensitive detection with temperature compensation. A numerical simulation based on a finite difference time domain (FDTD) method shows that a precise index change detection with a resolution of 10⁻⁶ can be achieved using of the proposed device.     

Design of an optical sensor array for hydrocarbon monitoring

Evanescent field optical sensors are accurately designed for hydrocarbon monitoring in water. Various kinds of waveguide sensors are optimized by considering a polydimethylsiloxane polymeric overlay as sensor region. The simulation results suggest that the selection of a suitable waveguide cross section can enhance the sensor performance. In particular, the hollow waveguide sensor exhibits very intriguing performance, the absorbance being quite linear with respect to the contaminant concentration. For the toluene pollution the absorbance exhibits a slope S_TE^A = 2.52 ×10^-2 ppm^-1{S_{\rm TE}^{A} =2.52 \times 10^{-2}\,{\rm ppm}^{-1}} for a waveguide reference length L = 1.18 mm. In order to simultaneously detect different pollutants in water such as toluene, benzene, chlorobenzene and ethilbenzene, an array of four miniaturized hollow waveguide sensors is designed.     

波导型钯(Pd)膜氢传感器数值模拟及优化

基于离子交换波导的集成型器件是氢敏传感器中很有发展潜力的一种. 传感区域由离子交换波导及其表面的金属钯膜组成, 通过有限差分法（FDM）计算了这种波导结构中的导模及表面等离子模的模场分布, 分析了其传播特性与钯膜光学常数的关系, 并结合束传播方法（BPM）对钯膜的厚度进行了优化, 使其具有最高的灵敏度.     

Design and analysis of a new silicon-on-insulator waveguide Michelson interferometer sensor

A new designed and analyzed silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide Michelson interferometer (SMI) sensor is proposed in this paper. The authors compare an optical SMI sensor, a silicon-on-insulator Bragg waveguide grating (SBG) sensor, and a fiber Bragg grating sensor (FBG) for temperature sensing in medicine applications. The SMI sensor has 20 times sensing more accuracy than the FBG sensor. Moreovr, the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the pass-band frequency responses of our proposed SMI can be designed much narrower than FBG and SBG sensors for sensing resolution enhancement. Further, the improved characteristics of the SMI demonstrated in this paper could pave the way for future high density temperature monitoring medicine applications.     

钢筋腐蚀监测的光波导传感方法原理探索

本文提出了一种用于混凝土结构钢筋腐蚀监测的光波导传感方法,该方法利用金属膜层局部取代光波导的介质包层,构成腐蚀敏感膜,从而获取金属腐蚀信息.本文依据波导理论讨论了该方法的原理,利用电化学方法在721比色皿的石英玻璃上证实了平面光波导腐蚀传感方案的可行性,并进一步用电镀方法制备出了光纤腐蚀传感器(FOCS)实验样品,取得了预期实验结果.     

Theoretical model of a planar integrated refractive index sensor based on surface plasmon-polariton excitation

A theoretical model of a new integrated planar surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) refractive index sensor is presented and comprehensively investigated. The main principle of operation of this device is based on high efficiency energy transfer between a p-polarized guided mode propagating in a waveguide layer of the structure and the SPP propagating in the opposite direction in a metal layer separated from the waveguide layer by a dielectric buffer. The high efficiency energy transfer is realised by means of a properly designed Bragg grating imprinted in the waveguide layer. This device is compact, free from any moving parts and can easily be integrated into any planar scheme. Our simulations for the sensor operating at the well developed and commercialised telecom wavelengths are based on coupled mode theory.     

Theory of absorption integrated optical sensor of gaseous materials

The eigen and noneigen (leaky) modes of a three-layer planar integrated optical waveguide are described. The dispersion relation of a three-layer planar waveguide and other dependences are derived, and the cutoff conditions are analyzed. The diagram of propagation constants of the guided and radiation modes of an irregular asymmetric three-layer waveguide and the dependence of the electric field amplitudes of radiation modes of substrate on vertical coordinate in a tantalum integrated optical waveguide are presented. The operating principles of an absorption integrated optical waveguide sensor are investigated. The dependences of sensitivity of an integrated optical waveguide sensor on the sensory cell length, the coupling efficiency of the laser radiation into the waveguide, the absorption cross-section of the studied material, and the level of additive statistical noise are investigated. Some of the prospective areas of application of integrated-optical waveguide sensors are outlined.