We designed an integrated long period grating based on the horizontal periodic tapering of a silicon nitride channel waveguide. The structure is studied for gas sensing applications, using Styrene AcryloNitrileas sensitive layer. Simulation results from the proposed architectureshow ahigh sensitivity beyond1700 nm/RIU using awavelength interrogation method centered at 1550 nm for a 20µm large and 300µm long structure.
A novel integrated photonic structure based on Long Period Waveguide Gratings (LPWGs) relying on channel-width modulation is proposed and tested for refractometric applications. These LPWGs have been fabricated through a Silicon Nitride process and experimentally characterized in terms of both surface and bulk sensitivities. Surface sensing configuration is first achieved by propagating one of the coupling optical modes into an epoxy-based negative photoresist SU8 cladding region that is in contact with the analyte via its outer surface. We subsequently show that the proposed LPWGs cladding layer can be advantageously replaced by a gas-porous polymeric bulk layer such as Styrene-co-AcryloNitrile (SAN) as the cladding region to be directly sensed to anticipate future gas sensing applications. Here, bulk sensing is optimized by increasing the analyte's influence on the modal propagation constants as it is demonstrated to be currently the most promising solution to effectively enhance the figure of merit of long period gratings of given lengths. Using varying water-glycerol mixtures, the surface sensitivity of these LPWGs has been measured at up to 240 nm per RI unit (RIU) that is in agreement with simulation. In addition, the bulk sensitivity has been indirectly estimated to be ⇠1900 nm/RIU via temperature measurements, which corroborates simulation results, thereby paving the way towards gas sensing applications.Index Terms-Integrated photonics, long period grating, refractometry, coupled-local-mode theory, silicon photonics.
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In this research, we demonstrate a high-sensitivity integrated silicon nitride long period grating (LPG) refractometer based on a rib waveguide with sinusoidally modulated width. While integrated LPG architectures typically achieve ultrahigh sensitivity only over a narrow optical bandwidth using a phase-matching turning-point optimization technique, our sensor exhibits a very high refractometric sensitivity that was designed to remain constant over a broad operational optical spectral bandwidth. The proposed design method relies on multi-modal dispersion tailoring that consists of homogenizing the spectral behaviors of both group and effective indices of the coupling modes. Experimental results are in agreement with numerical simulations, demonstrating not only a sensitivity reaching 11,500 nm/RIU but, more significantly, also that this sensitivity remains almost constant over a broad spectral range of at least 100 nm around 1550 nm. Additional advantages of the proposed sensor architecture encompass a low temperature sensitivity, down to −0.15 nm/K, and simplicity of the fabrication process. These results demonstrate the feasibility of chip-scale photonic integration to achieve both high sensitivity and large dynamic range of the proposed refractometer.
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
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