Temperature-insensitive optical sensors based on two cascaded identical microring resonators

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel, to the best of our knowledge, temperature-insensitive optical sensor based on two cascaded identical microring resonators (CIMRR) in this Letter. The structural parameters of the reference ring and sensing ring are designed to be identical. The upper cladding in the sensing windows of the two rings is removed. With different microfluidic channels, the reference ring and sensing ring are exposed to the reference solution and reagent sample, respectively. For wavelength interrogation experiments in the transmission spectrum contrast ratio and low-cost intensity interrogation experiments, the sensitivities of refractive index (RI) sensing are 3402.4 dB/RIU and 1087.3 dB/RIU, respectively, while the temperature sensitivities are as low as 0.023 dB/K and 0.0124 dB/K, respectively.