Athermal optical waveguide microring biosensor with intensity interrogation

The temperature sensitivity of optical waveguide microring (MR) is the critical factor to influence the performance of MR-based biosensor. An athermal MR-based biosensor with intensity interrogation is proposed and analyzed. The integrative biosensor chip is composed of sensing unit MR and interrogation unit Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with the same temperature sensitivity. The resonant wavelength shift of MR by temperature change is equal to the center wavelength shift of interrogation curve of MZI which cancel with each other during interrogation process. The polymer based integrative biosensor chip is designed and investigated. The simulation results show that the temperature sensitivity of the polymer waveguide biosensor is smaller than 1 pm/K with the temperature change between −10 K to 20 K relative to the reference temperature 20 °C and refractive index change from 0 to 0.05. The intensity interrogation method utilizing the power ratio between the two output ports of MZI has the flexibility of selecting large linear range and high resolution and is immune to output power fluctuations of the light source.