Sensitivity analysis of a photonic crystal structure for index-of-refraction sensing

All-polymer photonic crystal slab sensor

“…In addition to providing means for novel optical elements, such as wavelength selective mirrors, polarizers [1], waveplates [2], tunable filters [3][4][5][6][7] and ultrabroadband mirrors [8], such resonant gratings have increasingly found their way into a myriad of different sensing applications, such as chemical and environmental sensing [9,10], label-free biosensing [11][12][13], cancer screening [14,15], photonic crystal enhanced microscopy [16] and three dimensional imaging [17]. These resonant gratings, referred to here as photonic crystal slabs (PCS) [18], but also known as guided mode resonance filters or reflectors [1,19] and photonic crystal resonant reflectors [20] in the literature, are essentially slab waveguides in which the high refractive index waveguide core is in some way periodically modulated, such as by refractive index or thickness, and surrounded by cladding media of lower refractive indices [1,18].…”

Tuning efficiency and sensitivity of guided resonances in photonic crystals and quasi-crystals: a comparative study

“…On the other hand, in view of their power distribution strongly confined in the slab (and yet the capability of coupling with the external radiation), GRs provide an inherent sensitivity to the external environment. More specifically, as long as the transmission through the slab is influenced by the refractive index changes in the surrounding environment, the GRs exhibit a wavelength shift [13][14].…”

Photonic crystal-based all-optical on-chip sensor

“…The working principle of these passive optical sensors relies on the variations of their optical properties when the refractive index (RI) of the analyte changes [1,2]. The most well exploited techniques for optical sensing are based on the principle of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) [3], interferometry [4], and optical resonance.…”