title: Highly sensitive digital optical sensor based on cascaded high-Q ring-resonators.
abstract: A digital optical sensor based on two cascaded rings with different free spectral ranges (FSRs) is proposed. Because of their different FSRs, the major peak of the spectral response from the output port shifts digitally when the effective refractive index of ring #1 changes. And the shift of the major peak is equal to multiple FSRs of ring #2. Since it is easy to design a ring with a FSR of nanometers, the present digital optical sensor shows an ultra-high sensitivity (at the order of 10(5) nm/RIU) which is over two orders higher than that of a regular single-ring sensor. By using the present digital optical sensor, it becomes convenient to use an integrated optical micro-spectrometer (even with a low resolution) to monitor the peak shift of the spectral response. Therefore, it is promising to realize a low-cost and portable highly-sensitive optical sensor system on a single chip.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, State Key Laboratory for Modern Optical Instrumentation, East Building No.5, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China. dxdai@.zju.edu.cn
authors.forename: Daoxin
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dai
mesh_terms: D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D055096:Optical Devices; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D018511:Systems Integration; D014159:Transducers; D014732:Vibration