On-chip simultaneous measurement of humidity and temperature using cascaded photonic crystal microring resonators with error correction

We present the design, fabrication, and characterization of cascaded silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal microring resonators (PhCMRRs) for dual-parameter sensing based on a multiple resonances multiple modes (MRMM) technique. Benefitting from the slow-light effect, the engineered PhCMRRs exhibit unique optical field distributions with different sensitivities via the excitation of dielectric and air modes. The multiple resonances of two distinct modes offer new possibilities for enriching the sensing receptors with additional information about environmental changes while preserving all essential properties of traditional microring resonator based sensors. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate the feasibility of extracting humidity and temperature responses simultaneously with a single spectrum measurement by employing polymethyl methacrylate as the hydrophilic coating, obtaining a relative humidity (RH) sensitivity of 3.36 pm/%RH, 5.57 pm/%RH and a temperature sensitivity of 85.9 pm/degrees C, 67.1 pm/degrees C for selected dielectric mode and air mode, respectively. Moreover, the MRMM enriched data further forges the capability to perform mutual cancellation of the measurement error, which improves the sensing performance reflected by the coefficient of determination (R-2-value), calculated as 0.97 and 0.99 for RH and temperature sensing results, respectively. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

In this study, cascaded silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal microring resonators (PhCMRRs) were designed, fabricated, and characterized for dual-parameter sensing based on a multiple resonances multiple modes (MRMM) technique. The engineered PhCMRRs, benefiting from the slow-light effect, exhibit unique optical field distributions with different sensitivities by exciting dielectric and air modes. The feasibility of simultaneous humidity and temperature extraction was demonstrated using a polymethyl methacrylate coating, and the sensitivities for relative humidity (RH) and temperature were obtained. Furthermore, the MRMM technique enriched the data and improved the sensor performance by enabling mutual cancellation of measurement errors.