Design of grating couplers and MMI couplers on the TriPleX platform enabling ultra-compact photonic-based biosensors

作者：Gounaridis Lefteris; Groumas Panos^*; Schreuder Erik; Heideman Rene; Katopodis Vasilis; Kouloumentas Christos; Avramopoulos Hercules

来源：Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical , 2015, 209: 1057-1063.

DOI：10.1016/j.snb.2014.11.098

• Optical biosensor
• Micro ring resonator
• Photonic integration
• Multi mode interference coupler
• Food sensor
• TriPleX platform

We present the design of a novel photonic chip for a biosensor for food analysis, which is based on arrayed micro-ring resonators (MRRs) on the TriPleX platform. The novelty of the photonic chip lies on the fact that it eliminates the need for fiber pigtails and external polarization control and enables ultra-compact implementations by virtue of the hybrid integration of the laser source and the photodetectors on-chip. We present the MRR-based sensing mechanism, and we explain the associated power budget limitations that are particularly present in a fully integrated and arrayed version of this type of sensor. We then present in detail the simulations for the design of the grating coupler that couples the light from the flip-chip bonded laser source into the TriPleX platform and the multi-mode interference (MMI) coupler that splits the optical power among the eight parallel MRRs. We show that we can achieve a grating coupler with coupling efficiency close to 30% and an MMI coupler with insertion loss and power imbalance below 0.5 dB. We finally explain why this performance is sufficient in terms of available power budget on-chip for the proper operation of the novel ultra-compact biosensor.

• 出版日期2015-3-31