shuhei yokoyama

Differential Si ring resonators for label-free biosensing

Differential Si ring optical resonator sensors have been fabricated. Their detection sensitivity was 10−3–10−2% for sucrose solution, which corresponds to a sensitivity of ~1.0 ng/ml for prostate-specific antigen (PSA), which is satisfactory for practical use. In the differential sensing the input light is incident to two rings, and one of the outputs is connected to a π phase shifter then the two outputs are merged again. For the differential detection, not only is the common-mode noise canceled, resulting in high sensitivity, but also the temperature stability is much improved. A fluid channel is fabricated so that the detecting liquid flows to the detection ring and the reference liquid flows to the reference ring. We have proposed a method of obtaining a constant sensitivity for the integrated sensors even though the resonance wavelengths of the two rings of the differential sensor are slightly different. It was found that a region exists with a linear relationship between the differential output and the difference in the resonance wavelengths of the two rings. By intentionally differentiating the resonance wavelengths in this linear region, the sensors have a constant sensitivity. Many differential sensors with different ring spaces have been fabricated and the output scattering characteristics were statistically evaluated. As a result, a standard deviation of resonance wavelength σ = 8 × 10−3 nm was obtained for a ring space of 31 µm. From the width of the linear region and the standard deviation, it was estimated from the Gaussian distribution of the resonance wavelength that 93.8% of the devices have the same sensitivity.

Temperature dependence of resonance characteristics of silicon resonators and thermal stability improvement by differential operation method

In this paper, we describe the mechanism and solution for dominating temperature effects on refractive-index-based Si optical resonator sensors such as ring resonator and photonic crystal resonator sensors. The temperature change affects the silicon refractive index and also the resonator mechanical shape. As a result, it is reported that the refractive index change is marked, whereas the mechanical deformation effect is negligible. We also demonstrated that the differential operation is effective for suppressing the temperature effect for Si ring resonator sensors.