Improving the sensitivity of compound waveguide grating biosensor via modulated wavevector

Abstract

We report here on the improvement of the sensitivity of a compound waveguide grating (CWG) biosensor via a modulated wavevector. We first address that the primary challenges to enhance the sensitivity of the CWG biosensor is the constant effective relative permittivity of the grating. We then present guidelines on how to improve the sensitivity of the CWG biosensor. As a result, the sensitivity of the CWG biosensor in our example doubles its original value without changing any of the structural parameters. In this work, we aim at paving the way for the development of efficient CWG biosensors by offering new strategies to optimize the sensitivity through wavevector modulation.