Highly sensitive Si nanowire-based optical sensor using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer coupled microring
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Implementation of a Reference Interferometer for Nanodetection
Published on: April 26, 2014
1Centre for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, State Key Laboratory for Modern Optical Instrumentation, East Building No. 5, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
Abstract:
A Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) coupled microring is demonstrated experimentally to obtain a high sensitivity as well as a large range for measuring change in refractive index. For the present MZI-coupled microring, there is a major resonance wavelength with a high extinction ratio (16-36 dB) in a very large wavelength span. Consequently, a very large quasi-free spectral range (>120 nm) is achieved, which helps to obtain a large measurement range. The MZI-coupled microring sensor is used for measuring the change of the ambient refractive index ranging from 1.0 to 1.538, and the sensitivity is as high as 111 nm/refractive index unit.
