Optical refractive index biosensor using evanescently coupled lateral Bragg gratings on silicon-on-insulator

Abstract

In this paper, we present a compact silicon-on-insulator optical biosensor based on lateral Bragg gratings evanescently coupled to a waveguide. The device is fabricated by electron-beam lithography and dry-etched in a single step with inductive coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICP-RIE). Fully etched grating couplers are used to couple the light in and out of the chip, while lateral Bragg gratings are used as the sensing element of the device. A sensitivity of 22 nm/RIU is obtained by exposing the device to deionized water with different NaCl concentrations with a footprint area of 15 × 4 µm2 that allows for densely multiplexed solutions.