Comparative Analysis of Ridge and Slot Sidewall-Etched Waveguide Bragg Grating for Cancer Cell Detection

Waveguide Bragg grating (WBG) sensors are becoming popular in biosensing applications due to the rapid development in the fabrication technology of silicon photonic devices. In this paper, we have explored WBGs as a platform for cancer detection. Ridge and Slot waveguides with sidewall gratings were simulated and optimized using Lumerical Mode Solution to get a highly sensitive sensing structure that was later used to detect cancer cells. A maximum sensitivity of 380 nm/RIU was obtained for the sidewall grated slot waveguide with 220 nm height, allowing very accurate, inexpensive, and rapid detection of cancer cells.