Author

Xuan Huo

Date of Award

2008

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Engineering Science

Program

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Supervisor

Dr. Jayshri Sabarinathan

Abstract

Recently the interest in photonic crystal (PC) based micro-sensors has dramatically increased due to its potential for miniaturization and high sensitivity operation. A two-dimensional PC slab based microcavity coupled with single line defect waveguide has been designed for micro-pressure sensor applications. The sensor was realized on a silicon-on-insulator platform with an air bridge architecture. The optical modeling of the device was performed using three-dimensional finite difference time domain (FDTD) techniques. The optical resolution reaches 0.64% of normalized transmission through the waveguide for lnm vertical displacement. A fabrication process was developed specifically for the shallow etched air bridge sensor. Atomic force microscopy was used to understand the mechanical response of the PC pressure sensor. Mechanical modeling using finite element method (FEM) was used to correlate the pressure to the displacement of the sensor. The design of the PC based pressure sensor was further improved to increase the mechanical sensitivity by approximately 10 time over the original design. Finally by correlating the mechanical measurements with the optical modeling, an overall sensitivity of the micro pressure sensor is found to be 0.46% transmittance for IMpa pressure on the waveguide.

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