Detection of volatile organic compounds using mid-infrared silicon nitride waveguide sensors. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Mid-infrared (mid-IR) sensors consisting of silicon nitride (SiN) waveguides were designed and tested to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs). SiN thin films, prepared by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD), have a broad mid-IR transparent region and a lower refractive index (nSiN=2.0) than conventional materials such as Si (nSi=3.4), which leads to a stronger evanescent wave and therefore higher sensitivity, as confirmed by a finite-difference eigenmode (FDE) calculation. Further, in-situ monitoring of three VOCs (acetone, ethanol, and isoprene) was experimentally demonstrated through characteristic absorption measurements at wavelengths =3.0-3.6m. The SiN waveguide showed a five-fold sensitivity improvement over the Si waveguide due to its stronger evanescent field. To our knowledge, this is the first time SiN waveguides are used to perform on-chip mid-IR spectral measurements for VOC detection. Thus, the developed waveguide sensor has the potential to be used as a compact device module capable of monitoring multiple gaseous analytes for health, agricultural and environmental applications.

published proceedings

  • Sci Rep

altmetric score

  • 0.5

author list (cited authors)

  • Zhou, J., Al Husseini, D., Li, J., Lin, Z., Sukhishvili, S., Cot, G. L., Gutierrez-Osuna, R., & Lin, P. T.

citation count

  • 5

complete list of authors

  • Zhou, Junchao||Al Husseini, Diana||Li, Junyan||Lin, Zhihai||Sukhishvili, Svetlana||Coté, Gerard L||Gutierrez-Osuna, Ricardo||Lin, Pao Tai

publication date

  • April 2022