A Compact TE-Notch Filter With Simultaneous Capability of TM-Suppression and Sensing Applications

An optical notch filter has been designed based on a silicon-slab Photonic Crystal (PhC) W1 waveguide. Birefringence originated usual performance degradation of notch filters has been eliminated by optimizing the slab-thickness and radius of the holes to embed a TE pass filter in the same structure. This resulted in TE and TM transmittances as ≈ -1.5 dB and ≈ -28 dB respectively at the wavelength 1550 nm. Structural parameters of the device are represented by normalizing them with respect to the lattice constant such that the structure can be scaled based on the application wavelength. Thereafter, generation of the mini stop band (MSB), i.e. notch-band, has been studied for various relative longitudinal-shifts of the lateral cladding for different filling fractions. Two different longitudinal-shifts are combined in a footprint of 9.8 ×7.35 μm
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to realize a 10 nm notch-band having a notch suppression of ≈ 27 dB. Application of the notch-filter as a refractive index sensor has been investigated that exhibits its sensitivity as 500 nm/RIU. The potentiality of the device in applications like - bio-sensing (e.g., detection of morphological forms of certain bacteria, and some typical viral particles) and industrial measurements (typically, sensing of Ethyl Alcohol percentage in aqueous solution) has also been explored.