Integrated Optical Interferometric Biosensors based on Microelectronics technology for biosensing applications

Abstract

Integrated optical sensors have reached a great importance during last years since they can be used for the direct detection of biomolecular interactions. Moreover, Silicon microelectronics technology allows mass production as well as the fabrication of microsystems by hybrid integration of sources, sensors, photodelectors and CMOS electronics. For the fabrication of an evanescent field sensor with an integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometric (MZI) configuration, the optical waveguides must verify two main characteristics: monomode behaviour and high surface sensitivity. In this paper we present the development of a MZI sensor based on two different optical waveguides: TIR (Total Internal Reflection) and ARROW (Antiresonant Reflecting Optical Waveguides). The advantages of both structures are discussed and experimental results of the devices are presented.