Passive Al2O3 optical ring resonator sensor design

Integrated optical circuits have gained popularity in various fields and applications due to their compact size, high sensitivity, lower power consumption, faster processing speeds, and high integration with electronic components. Optical ring resonators are widely used integrated optical devices in applications such as medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, sensing, filtering, and telecommunications. They offer a variety of functionalities, which can be optimized by designing the coupling between input and output waveguides. Research is ongoing to optimize the performance of these devices, including material platforms and fabrication techniques. This thesis focuses on designing an optical ring resonator sensor made of alumina (Al2O3) material for the optical ring resonator and silica (SiO2) material for the substrate layer. Commercially available Synopsys RSoft BeamPROP, Lumerical, and MATLAB software were used for all calculations and simulations. The designed optical ring resonator sensor is highly appropriate for integrated optical sensing due to its efficiency in sensitivity. Results show that designed optical ring resonator sensor is a superior option for integrated optical sensing compared to other designs described due to its high sensitivity and efficiency in the literature.