Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
Doi
Abstract
To improve the Mid-Infrared (IR) chemical sensing capabilities in liquids and gases, a polymer
based waveguide that has 100% interaction with Quantum Cascade (QC) laser field is proposed and
demonstrated. The waveguide has thickness down to 10s nanometers so that chemical diffusion and
preconcentration could happen very fast; the path length is increased from several microns to over
centimeters due to the high spectral and diffraction brightness of QC lasers. Efficient prism coupling into
whispering gallery resonators’ coated with submicron polymers and planar slab polymer waveguide are
demonstrated, high signal to noise ratio is obtained and potential applications discussed
