On-chip, high-sensitivity temperature sensors based on dye-doped solid-state polymer microring lasers

Abstract

We developed a chip-scale temperature sensor with a high sensitivity of 228.6 pm/°C based on a rhodamine 6G (R6G)-doped SU-8 whispering gallery mode microring laser. The optical mode was largely distributed in a polymer core layer with a 30 μm height that provided detection sensitivity, and the chemically robust fused-silica microring resonator host platform guaranteed its versatility for investigating different functional polymer materials with different refractive indices. As a proof of concept, a dye-doped hyperbranched polymer (TZ-001) microring laser-based temperature sensor was simultaneously developed on the same host wafer and characterized using a free-space optics measurement setup. Compared to TZ-001, the SU-8 polymer microring laser had a lower lasing threshold and a better photostability. The R6G-doped SU-8 polymer microring laser demonstrated greater adaptability as a high-performance temperature-sensing element. In addition to the sensitivity, the temperature resolutions for the laser-based sensors were also estimated to be 0.13 °C and 0.35 °C, respectively. The rapid and simple implementation of micrometer-sized temperature sensors that operate in the range of 31 – 43 °C enables their potential application in thermometry.