Ultra-Sensitive Optical Sensor to Detect Single Waterborne Bacterium

Abstract

AbstractWater safety is a serious problem, particularly in highly populated cities, because pathogenic microorganisms in drinking water can trigger deadly outbreaks. Bacterial contamination in drinking water, like Shigella flexneri, Vibrio cholera, Salmonella enterica, E. coli, and others, is a major source of pathogenic pollutants. The current study proposes a photonic crystal (Ph.C.) micro square ring resonator (MSRR) sensor that is small in size and has a fast output response time to detect the signature of single waterborne bacteria. The bacterial contamination in water varies the refractive index and in turn resonance wavelength shift at the throughput port is observed. The transmission spectrum is determined by using FDTD simulation of Ansys Lumerical software for the suggested structure and the impurity is determined by examining the resonance peak wavelength shift. The proposed structure is ultra-sensitive and compact in size having sensitivity of almost 946 nm/RIU and the structure would be useful for a variety of sensing purposes.KeywordsPhotonic crystalMicro ring resonatorFDTDSensor E. coli Vibrio cholera