Multi-cavity Photonic Crystal Waveguide-Based Ultra-Compact Pressure Sensor

Abstract

In this paper, we proposed an ultra-compact pressure sensor. It is designed using silicon photonic crystal waveguide with the multiple cavities. For better light confinement and simplicity in fabrication 'air holes in slab type' structure is used. For the propagation of light, transverse magnetic (TM) polarization mode is considered. The combination of silicon waveguide and multi-cavities gives high quality factor. The designed sensor is based on the principle of resonance wavelength. Applied external pressure changes the optical and electronic property of sensor thus resonance wavelength of sensor is shifted. It works in the conventional (c) band and short (s) band of communication system. The proposed design has very high quality factor of 1720 and sensitivity of 0.50 nm/GPa. All designing work is performed using layout designer tool and simulation work is performed using finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) method and plane wave expansion (PWE) method. Keywords