Nanoscale photonic crystal sensor arrays on monolithic substrates using side-coupled resonant cavity arrays

We present nanoscale photonic crystal sensor arrays (NPhCSAs) on monolithic substrates. The NPhCSAs can be used as an opto-fluidic architecture for performing highly parallel, label-free detection of biochemical interactions in aqueous environments. The architecture consists of arrays of lattice-shifted resonant cavities side-coupled to a single PhC waveguide. Each resonant cavity has slightly different cavity spacing and is shown to independently shift its resonant peak (a single and narrow drop) in response to the changes in refractive index. The extinction ratio of well-defined single drop exceeds 20 dB. With three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (3D-FDTD) technique, we demonstrate that the refractive index sensitivity of 115.60 nm/RIU (refractive index unit) is achieved and a refractive index detection limit is approximately of 8.65 x 10(-5) for this device. In addition, the sensitivity can be adjusted from 84.39 nm/RIU to 161.25 nm/RIU by changing the number of functionalized holes. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America