The properties of lattice-shifted microcavity in photonic crystal slab and its applications for electro-optical sensor

In this paper, a micro electro-optic sensor structure and its sensing technique based on lattice-shifted resonant microcavity (HO-nanocavity) in a triangular lattice photonic crystals (PhCs) slab are presented. The HO-nanocavity is formed by only laterally shifting two adjacent holes outwards slightly in the opposite direction, which can realize a nanocavity with high quality factor (Q) value to meet the requirements of practical application. The electro-optic sensor is realized in hole-array based photonic crystal slab with triangular lattice air holes infiltrated with a nonlinear optical (NLO) polymer (n(poly) = 1.6) in Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) operating in the wavelength range from 1400 nm to 1600 nm. The simulation results of PhC electro-sensitive structure show that the optical properties of PhCs can be used to design sensing devices characterized by a high degree of compactness and good resolution. The properties of the sensor are analyzed and calculated using the plane-wave expansion (PWE) method and simulated using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The simulation results display that the resonant wavelength of the mode localized in the microcavity shifts its spectral drop position following a linear behavior when a driving voltage ranging between 0.0 V and 3.2V is applied, and the sensitivity of 31.90 nm/V is observed. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.