Integrated Optical Pressure Sensors in Silicon-on-Insulator

An optical pressure sensor can be useful in many applications where electronics fall short (e.g., explosive environments). We have fabricated and characterized compact, integrated optical pressure sensors on a silicon-on-insulator platform using ring resonators and Mach-Zehnder interferometers. The silicon substrate is locally etched using KOH to produce very thin membranes of 3.28 mu m. Measurements have shown that spectral features in our devices can shift up to 370 pm going from 0 to 80 kPa.