Noise analysis of a resonance sensor platform for enhanced limit of detection

Resonance sensors have been shown to be highly sensitive [1], [2]. Their performance is however limited by the presence of noise in the signal amplitude and the resonance position of the resonator [3]. We will analyze the effects of the noise sources in our setup and the performance increase that can be achieved using several resonant sensor configurations. Finally, we will show the achieved increase in limit of detection for the optimized system

High refractive index low-loss aluminium oxide waveguides

A high refractive index (n~1.715 at 633 nm of wavelength) aluminium oxide slab waveguide has been developed, which exhibits very low losses from the near-UV to the near infrared wavelength range. Slab waveguide losses as low as 1.8 dB/cm at 407 nm and less than 0.1 dB/cm at 1550 nm of wavelength have been experimentally characterized. Such low losses are limited by surface scattering. The layer was deposited by reactive sputter coating with an aluminium target, a set substrate temperature of 700 C and an oxidation state of the target of 5 %. The very high optical quality of this material, in combination with rare-earth ion doping, could pave the way towards high-gain on-chip amplifiers in different wavelength ranges, on-chip lasers and non-linear applications

Low-stress Si3N4 waveguides on sapphire substrate: (Student paper)

In this work, we present a new platform, Si3N4-on-sapphire, in which 1.35 μm thick Si3N4 layers can be deposited in a single low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) step with very low residual tensile stress