Design of optical Mach-Zehnder interferometer using ion exchange method for biosensing

Ion-exchange technology on glass substrates for the fabrication of optical waveguides is a cost-effective and low loss method to produce biosensors. In this paper, the thermal ion-exchange process was simulated using a commercial software where various concentrations of AgNO3/NaNO3 salt-melt was deposited on Corning glass substrates at different temperatures and duration. Subsequently, a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) was designed on glass substrates using OptiBPM software and the effect of the branching angle, a towards the power losses in the MZI was evaluated. Guided light suffers loss owing to the tapered andseparating structure of the MZI.