Unique surface sensing property and enhanced sensitivity in microring resonator biosensors based on subwavelength grating waveguides

In this paper, unique surface sensing property and enhanced sensitivity in microring resonator biosensors based on subwavelength grating (SWG) waveguides are studied and demonstrated. The SWG structure consists of periodic silicon pillars in the propagation direction with a subwavelength period. Effective sensing region in the SWG microring resonator includes not only the top and side of the waveguide, but also the space between the silicon pillars on the light propagation path. It leads to greatly increased sensitivity and a unique surface sensing property in contrast to common evanescent wave sensors: the surface sensitivity remains constantly high as the surface layer thickness grows. Microring resonator biosensors based on both SWG waveguides and conventional strip waveguides were compared side by side in surface sensing experiment and the enhanced surface sensing capability in SWG based microring resonator biosensors was demonstrated. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America