Abstract
A highly sensitive and selective CO2 gas sensor is presented based on a subwavelength grating (SWG) slot waveguide. Polyhexamethylene biguanide (PHMB) as a functional material fills the slot gap as well as the space between the silicon pillars of the SWG structure. Beyond the photonic bandgap of the SWG slot waveguide, there are transmission resonances sensitive to the refractive index changes of PHMB due to the infiltration of CO2 molecules into the functional material. The numerical simulations indicate that the sensitivity of the structure is S = 12.9 pm/ppm which is considerably higher than the previously designed gas sensors based on functional materials. The higher sensitivity of the proposed sensor is attributed to the strong confinement of the light in the slot gap filled with functional material while previous designs have limited light-matter interaction by placing the functional material in the cladding. The proposed structure may be used to design various sensors by utilizing different functional material sensitive to the desired analyte.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have