Design of a High Q-Factor Label-Free Optical Biosensor Based on a Photonic Crystal Coupled Cavity Waveguide

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in research into silicon-based on-chip sensing. In this paper, a coupled cavity waveguide (CCW) based on a slab photonic crystal structure was designed for use as a label-free biosensor. The photonic crystal consisted of holes arranged in a triangular lattice. The incorporation of defects can be used to design sensor devices, which are highly sensitive to even slight alterations in the refractive index with a small quantity of analyte. The plane wave expansion method (PWE) was used to study the dispersion and profile of the CCW modes, and the finite difference time domain (FDTD) technique was used to study the transmission spectrum, quality factor, and sensitivity. We present an analysis of adiabatically coupling light into a coupled cavity waveguide. The results of the simulation indicated that a sensitivity of 203 nm/RIU and a quality factor of 13,360 could be achieved when the refractive indices were in the range of 1.33 to 1.55.

Accurate Nonstandard Path Integral Models for Arbitrary Dielectric Boundaries in 2-D NS-FDTD Domains

“…Therefore, the discrete space treatment is unsuitable for realistic problems with arbitrarily shaped objects and fine details, not aligned to the grid axes [4,5,[7][8][9][10][11], owing to the use of the insufficient staircase approximation on orthogonal grids in an effort to model the realistic object under study. Such structures can be, frequently, encountered in various applications, ranging from electromagnetic compatibility configurations [12][13][14] and microwave devices [15][16][17] to antennas [18][19][20], optical arrangements [21][22][23][24][25], and designs of low observability, including RCS scenarios. To circumvent such a drawback, a path integral (PI) model, based on the path integral form of Ampere's and Faraday's laws, has been previously presented [26][27][28].…”