A Novel Optical Microring Resonator Accelerometer

Abstract

A unique optical accelerometer based on a microring resonator fabricated on a flexible substrate is experimentally demonstrated and its performance analyzed. This accelerometer measures the applied acceleration by measuring the shift of the resonant wavelength of the flexible microring resonator. The measured sensitivity of 31 pm/g is in accordance with our calculations. Some schemes of tailoring the sensitivity and the dynamic range are also suggested.

Theoretical Analysis of an Optical Accelerometer Based on Resonant Optical Tunneling Effect

“…With a high-resolution optical spectrum analyzer (0.01 picometer), the resolution of the ROTE senor can reach 1 × 10 −3 g. Although the sensitivity is a key parameter for the accelerometer, the sensitivity and the acceleration measurement range always should be balanced for the specific application. According to the simulation results, the proposed accelerometer can reach 9 pm/g with measurement range of ±130 g, which is comparable with that of the Fabry-Pérot-based accelerometer (90 nm/g, ±0.263 g) [5], the photonic crystal accelerometer (1.17 nm/g, ±22 g) [25] and the optical microring resonator accelerometer (31 pm/g, ±7 g) [26]. The sensor we proposed has the lowest sensitivity but maximum measurement range among all these optical accelerometers.…”

Novel high sensitivity accelerometer based on a microfiber loop resonator

“…1, the device behaves as a flexible cantilever beam, if we know the vertical displacement of the free end of the cantilever beam relative to the fixed end and the position of the microfiber loop with respect to the free end, we can calculate the strain acting on the loop as follows: 14,15 where is the strain experienced by the MLR; x is the position of the microfiber loop with respect to the fixed end of the device; m is the proof mass; E is the Young's modulus of the silicon substrate; b, l, and t are the width, length, and thickness of the silicon cantilever beam, respectively; and a is the acceleration. From Eq.…”

Theoretical Analysis of a Microring Resonator Array with High Sensitivity and Large Dynamic Range Based on a Multi-Scale Technique

“…Optical microring resonators have extensive applications in wavelength filters [1], label-free biosensors [2,3,4,5], pressure sensors [6,7,8], and acceleration sensors [9,10] due to their outstanding properties of micro-size, the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility and immunity to electromagnetic fields [11,12]. In sensor applications, the general sensing theory is that the change in refractive index induced by the external physical variables causes a corresponding shift in the resonant wavelength of the resonator.…”

“…The Vernier effect [13,16,17,18], which is generated by the cascades of two ring resonators with slightly different free spectral ranges (FSRs), was theoretically and experimental proven to be a high-performance solution to improving the sensitivity of ring resonators [19]. Generally, the design and optimization of a sensor should balance its sensitivity and its dynamic range, while in other applications, such as acceleration detection, a large dynamic range and a high sensitivity are of equal importance [9]. For a resonator sensor, the FSR is directly proportional to the measurement range, and as a result, restricts its dynamic range.…”