High-visibility optofluidic Mach-Zehnder interferometer

A high-visibility integrated optofluidic Mach-Zehnder interferometer based on liquid-core antiresonant reflecting optical waveguides is reported. The device's geometry has been optimized to minimize the intensity imbalance between the two arms for highly unbalanced Mach-Zehnder configurations. This results in a very compact device with a total length of only 2.5 mm and with required liquid volume of about 0.16 nl. High visibility is demonstrated for two interferometers corresponding to different sensing lengths. The devices have been optically characterized, and the measured interference fringes in the transmitted spectra show good agreement with the theoretical ones. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America