This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/JSEN.2020.2991215, IEEE Sensors
Journal
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. XX, NO. XX, MONTH X, XXXX 1

Modal characteristics of refractive index

engineered hybrid plasmonic waveguide
Muhammad Ali Butt, Nikolay Lvovich Kazanskiy, Svetlana Nikolaevna Khonina

Abstract— In this work, we proposed a novel design of a

refractive index engineered subwavelength grating silicon-
based hybrid plasmonic waveguide via the finite element
method. The intensity integral (Γ) in the upper cladding can be
controlled by varying the thickness (HSi) of the top silicon layer.
The highest evanescent field ratio of 0.85 is obtained at HSi=200
nm which allows the hybrid mode to confine in the low index
medium and a large evanescent field resides in the upper
cladding. The sensitivity of the waveguide is calculated by
monitoring the change in the effective refractive index to the
ambient refractive index. The maximum mode sensitivity of 0.7 is obtained. The spectral performance of the
subwavelength grating (SWG) hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPWG) based ring resonator design is studied which
exhibits a sensitivity as high as 1000 nm/RIU which is higher than the previously reported values. We believe that the
proposed waveguide scheme is an ideal candidate to produce highly sensitive lab-on-chip sensors.

Index Terms—Subwavelength grating hybrid plasmonic waveguide, refractive index sensor, Evanescent field ratio,
microring resonator.

I. INTRODUCTION with the help of periodic segmented WG structures at the

D
ielectric waveguides (WGs) work on the principle of total
internal reflection (TIR) to guide the light in a high refractive
index WG core over a long distance with low loss of ~3-10
dB/m [1], however, the light confinement ability of such WGs
is limited by diffraction. Contrary to this, plasmonic WGs
propagate surface plasmons (SP) or surface plasmon
polaritons (SPPs) wave at the dielectric-metal interface which
is evanescently confined in the direction perpendicular to the
propagation [2, 3]. These WGs can confine light to the very
small region as their light confining ability is not affected by
the diffraction limit, However, the presence of metal as the
part of the WG structure results in significant propagation
loss. The hybrid plasmonic WG (HPWG) structure is
developed to combine the attributes of dielectric and
plasmonic WG to achieve high light confinement without
suffering a large loss [4-9].
The dispersion and nonlinear properties of photonic devices
can be adapted without changing the material composition
This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and
Higher Education within the State assignment FSRC «Crystallography
and Photonics» RAS (No. 007-GZ/Ch3363/26).
Corresponding author: Muhammad Ali Butt)
M.A. Butt is with the Department of Technical Cybernetics, Samara
National Research University, 443086 Samara, Russia and also with
the Institute of Microelectronics and Optoelectronics, Warsaw
University of Technology, Koszykowa 75, 00-662 Warszawa, Poland.
(email: ali_ciit_engineer@yahoo.com).
N.L. Kazanskiy and S.N. Khonina are with the Department of
Technical Cybernetics, Samara National Research University, 443086
Samara, Russia, and also with the Institute of RAS-Branch of the
FSRC Crystallography and Photonics RAS, Samara National Research
University, 443086 Samara, Russia.
subwavelength scale of the propagating light is an attractive
and simple approach [10, 11]. This helps in overcoming the
diffraction limit and the WGs can be designed as a
homogeneous optical medium with an effective refractive
index that depends on the dimensions and geometry of the
WG material. Recently, several sensors designs based on
SWG WGs are proposed which includes ring resonators [12],
grating [13], modulator [14] or photonic crystal [15]. The
sensitivity of such devices is determined by the interaction of
the electric field with the ambient medium and can be
enhanced by increasing the light-matter interaction.
Ring resonators based on conventional silicon WGs are widely
used as biosensors due to their design simplicity and ease of
fabrication. The commercially available biosensing platform
utilizes ring resonators for quasi-TE polarized light provides a
bulk sensitivity of 54 nm/RIU and detection limit of 1 ng/mL
[16]. However several clinical analytical assays demand lower
detection limits requiring additional amplification [17].
Recently slot WGs have been proposed to increase the light-
matter interaction [18], however, the increased overlap of the
electric field with the WG sidewalls results in the increased
scattering propagation loss appears due to sidewall roughness.
This unconstructive aspect limits the sensitivity and detection
limit of the sensors. The optical field in the ring resonator
based on standard HPWG has a large overlap with the upper
cladding, as a result, the sensitivity is extremely high ~580
nm/RIU compared to dielectric ring resonator sensors [19].
Another attempt to enhance the sensitivity by using double
slot HPWG ring resonator is proposed which is used for
optical sensors and modulation applications. The sensitivity
offered by the device is ~ 687.5 nm/RIU [20]. In our previous
work, we suggested a novel design of ring resonator which is

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formed by the marriage of plasmonic WG and metal-insulator- selected as a physics interface. The WG cross-section sub-
metal WG that offers a sensitivity of 800 nm/RIU [21]. domains are split into triangular mesh elements with a fine
However, it requires strict fabrication conditions. mesh grid size of 15 nm for the entire design. The meshing
In this paper, we proposed a novel WG scheme known as depends on the solution accuracy and the computational power
SWG HPWG which combines the best attributes of SWG WG of the system. This arrangement provides correct simulation
and HPWG structures. The geometric parameters of the WG results based on our system processing speed. For wave
are thoroughly studied to optimize the overall sensor response propagation systems, it is desirable to model a domain with
considering the increased evanescent field overlap with the open boundaries of the computational domain as it allows the
ambient medium without compromising on the propagation EM wave to pass through without any reflection. The open
loss. In the end, a gas sensing device is proposed based on geometry is set by assigning a scattering boundary conditions
SWG HPWG and the spectral performance is compared with (SBC) at the outer edges of the simulation window.
the standard HPWG device. Table I
The paper is organized in the following sequence: Section II Geometric parameters of standard HPWG and SWG HPWG
describes the SWG HPWG geometry and the parameters used WSi HSi HSiO2 HAu l-w g
in the modelling process. Section III explains the propagation (nm) (nm) (nm) (nm) (nm) (nm)
350 200-400 50 50 220-300 40-60
of Bloch mode in SWG WG and the operational wavelength
region. Section IV describes the promising approach to
enhance the evanescent field ratio in the upper cladding and a) Standard HPWG
optimized geometry parameters to reduce propagation loss.
Section V is related to the mode sensitivity analysis of SWG WSi
HPWG. It is shown that the sensitivity is greatly enhanced by Si HSi
HSiO2 SiO2
SWG HPWG when the parameters are well optimized. These Au HAu
WGs are easy to fabricate using standard CMOS technology. Substrate
The proposed fabrication steps are presented in section VI. In b)
ᴧ l-w
the end, the ring resonator design based on standard HPWG
and SWG HPWG is studied and compared. The comparison of
g
their spectral performance proves the supremacy of SWG
HPWG over conventional HPWG scheme as presented in
section VII. The paper ends with a brief conclusion presented SWG HPWG
in section VIII.
II. SWG HPWG GEOMETRY Figure 1. Schematic of a) Standard HPWG. b) SWG HPWG

HPWG structures can achieve strong light confinement by

coupling the light guided by a dielectric WG and a plasmonic
WG. These WGs are composed of metal (usually silver or
gold), low refractive index material nano-slot (SiO2) and high
refractive index material (Si or III-V semiconductor) stacked
on each other. Horizontal [22] and vertical [23] both
configurations of HPWG can be designed. In the case of
horizontal HPWG configuration, air (n=1.0) can be used as a
low index material between metal and high index material.
In this work, we proposed a vertical SWG HPWG geometry
and compare its modal characteristics with standard HPWG.
The overall width of the WG is denoted as WSi which is fixed
at 350 nm. Whereas the height of metal, low index material
and high index material is denoted as HAu, HSiO2 and HSi,
respectively. Au is used as a metal due to its high resistance to
oxidation. The linewidth of a WG segment is represented as l-
w whereas g is the gap between the WG segments. Therefore,
the period (ᴧ) of the SWG WG is expressed as ᴧ=l-w + g. The
geometric parameters used in the analysis are tabulated in
Table I. The graphical representation of the standard HPWG
and SWG HPWG is shown in figure 1. When the size of the
nano-slot (HSiO2) between the Si and Au is of nano-scale,
enhanced field confinement is observed. That is the reason, we
fixed the HSiO2=50 nm and enhance the intensity integral in the
upper cladding by varying the top Si layer (HSi).
The WG models are simulated using COMSOL Multiphysics
5.1 based 3D finite element method (FEM). The
electromagnetic (EM) wave frequency domain (emw) is
III. BLOCH MODE FORMALISM
Propagation of electromagnetic wave can be categorized into
three wavelength region for a fixed grating period (ᴧ):
i) The sub-wavelength region in which the wavelength to
period ratio is λ/Λ>2·neff. This corresponds to the wavelength
regime longer than the Bragg wavelength (λBragg) and the WG
acts like a standard WG where the electromagnetic wave
propagates in the periodically segmented WG as Bloch modes
[24], which can be illustrated by the Bloch theorem [25] that
takes into consideration the periodic modulation of the
medium. The E-field distribution of fundamental mode and
Bloch mode at 1550 nm in standard and SWG HPWG is
presented in figure 2a (cross-section view) and figure 2 b (top
view). The corresponding magnitude of the z-component of
displacement current presented for the xz symmetry plane of
the WG is presented in figure 2c. In SWG HPWG, the
intensity profile is taken in the middle of the grating segment
for cross-section view, i.e., l-w/2, whereas, the top view is
taken in the middle of the nano-slot at HSiO2/2. The WG
parameters such as WSi, HAu and HSiO2 are fixed at 350 nm, 50
nm and 50 nm, respectively. The SWG WG has a period of
320 nm with a duty cycle (η) of 0.875.
ii) The wavelength range where λBragg exist results in Bragg
reflections. This region is known as photonic bandgap.
iii) The wavelength range shorter than λBragg where the Bloch
wave becomes leaky and part of the energy is radiated out of

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the WG.
a) Cross-section b) Top view
E-field in the upper Ez - field
Ez - field
cladding

Propagation direction Propagation direction

HSi=200 nm HSi=400 nm

SWG HPWG c) Displacement current density

SWG HPWG

x
z z

x x
HSi=200 nm HSi=400 nm

Standard HPWG Standard HPWG

Figure 2. E-field distribution in a) Cross-section view, b) Top view. c) Displacement current density in standard HPWG(left) and SWG HPWG
(right).

The transmission spectrum of standard HPWG and SWG
HPWG having η = 0.857,0.867,0.875 and 0.882 is plotted over
a frequency range of 1.8x1014 Hz to 3 x1014 Hz as shown in
figure 3a. The Bloch mode travels in the direction normal to
the periodic structures with a wave-vector k=2π/λ and a
temporal frequency ω. The wavelength region where ᴧ~λ/2
refers to as a photonic bandgap where there is no transmission
of the light. The bandgap for SWG HPWG for η =0.875 lies in
the frequency range of ~2.25 x1014 Hz-2.55 x1014 Hz which
a)
-10 1550 nm
1000 nm
-15
Transmission (dB)
shows a blueshift as η increases. Whereas, the WG periodic
structure behaves as a homogeneous effective medium in the
subwavelength regime ᴧ<λ/2 with an effective index
neff=c(k/ω) where c is the speed of light in vacuum. The mode
is lossless because the reflection and diffraction effects are
cancelled. The E-field distribution of light in SWG HPWG is
shown in figure 3 b where radiative mode (λ=1000 nm),
reflective mode (λ=1280 nm) and Bloch mode (λ=1550 nm) is
shown.
b) Ez - field distribution
η=0.875

-20
Subwavelength Radiative mode λ=1000 nm
-25 region
η=0.875
-30

-35 SWG HPWG,  =0,857

-40
1280 nm
-45
1.8 2.0 2.2 2.4
Frequency (10 Hz)
Figure 3. a) The transmission spectrum of standard and SWG HPWG having different duty cycle, b) E-field distribution in SWG HPWG in three
different wavelength regions.
IV. EVANESCENT FIELD RATIO (EFR)
The sensitivity of evanescent field gas absorption sensors is
directly proportional to the large light confinement in the
upper cladding. When the optical confinement is large, the neff
is strongly influenced by the concentration change of a cover
medium such as aqueous solution or gas. Therefore evanescent
field ratio (EFR) is the core parameter for the realization of
sensors based on the interaction with the evanescent field. The
sensors with high EFR can have strong interaction with the
ambient medium, which in turn improves the sensitivity of the
sensor as demonstrated in [26].
The mode confinement factor of the standard and SWG
HPWG is calculated which involves the intensity integration
in low index layer (i.e SiO2) is shown in figure 4a. If we
consider the constant geometric parameters such as HSi=200
SWG HPWG, =0,867 Bragg reflection λ=1280 nm
SWG HPWG, =0,875 η=0.875
SWG HPWG, =0,882
Standard HPWG
2.6
14
2.8 3.0
Bloch mode λ=1550 nm
nm and HSiO2=50 nm, then standard HPWG has strong light
confinement of 0.6 where SWG HPWG possesses a
confinement factor of 0.267 for l-w=280 nm and g=40 nm.
This signifies that most of the power resides in the upper
cladding.
Keeping into account the fabrication tolerances of ~10-50
nm, the evanescent field ratio and propagation loss are
calculated for different values of the SWG period (l-w+g) and
plotted against varying HSi. It is worth mentioning that the
number of grating segments (N) is 10 throughout the paper.
The remaining parameters of the WG such as WSi, HAu and
HSiO2 are fixed at 350 nm, 50 nm and 50 nm, respectively. For
standard HPWG, Γ is calculated by integrating the intensity
over the region of interest (low index medium (SiO2) and the
upper cladding region), i.e., ΓSiO2+Γuc. For SWG HPWG, the
region of interest is calculated as ΓSiO2+Γuc+Γg which is equal

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to the sum of intensity integral in the low index medium,
upper cladding region and the empty spaces between two WG
segments (g). EFR is expressed as the ratio of intensity
integration of region of interest to the overall intensity
integration in the WG.
∭ |𝐸 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧)|2 𝑑𝑥𝑑𝑦𝑑𝑧
𝐸𝐹𝑅 = 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡
∭𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 |𝐸 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧)|2 𝑑𝑥𝑑𝑦𝑑𝑧
It is evident from figure 4b, EFR of standard HPWG is
highly dependent on HSi which significantly reduces as HSi
increases from 200 nm to 400 nm. This is due to the
transformation of the hybrid mode into the dielectric mode
which transfers most of the energy from the low index region
(SiO2) and confines it in the high index Si core. At HSi=200
nm, standard HPWG show strong mode confinement in nano-
slot (SiO2) whereas strong evanescent field in the upper
cladding is only obtained in SWG HPWG.
The propagation loss is calculated by using the expression:
10xlog (Pout/Pin)/total length of WG. Where the total length of
SWG HPWG is calculated as (l_w+g)xN - g. The propagation
loss of SWG HPWG can surpass the loss associated with
standard HPWG if the grating period is not properly
optimized. For instance, the propagation loss of standard
HPWG is the range of 4.32-7.08 dB/µm. The loss tends to
a)
0.6
Mode confinement
increase as HSi increase which transfers the mode power to the
upper high index silicon layer. Therefore HSi~200 nm-300 nm
is considered as optimized layer thickness where low
propagation loss is expected.
Whereas SWG HPWG, the propagation losses are different
for a different grating period for the same WG geometry. In
the calculations, we have used g=40 nm, 50 nm and 60 nm
whereas l-w is varied between 240-300 nm. From figure 4 c, it
can be seen that the propagation loss decreases as l-w
increases. Keeping into account the sensitivity of the WG
which can be obtained at HSi=200 nm, the minimum
propagation loss of 5 dB/µm can be obtained for l-w=300 nm
and g=40 nm.
For a good understanding of the WG performance, the
figure of merit (FOM) is presented which is based on the
benefit-to-cost ratio where the benefit is high EFR and cost is
propagation loss. Therefore, the FOM is expressed in terms of
the ratio of EFR and propagation loss as shown in figure 4d.
These calculations provide a guideline in choosing an
appropriate grating period for obtaining highly sensitive WG
geometry with low propagation loss.
Standard HPWG SWG HPWG
HSiO2=50 nm
0.32 g=40 nm
HSiO2=60 nm
HSiO2=70 nm

Mode confinement

HSiO2=80 nm 0.30
HSiO2=90 nm
0.5 HSiO2=100 nm 0.28

0.26
0.4
l-w=220 nm
0.24
l-w=240 nm
l-w=260 nm Color labels for b,c and d
0.3 0.22 l-w=280 nm
l-w=300 nm

200 250 300 350 400 200 250 300 350 400
HSi (nm) HSi (nm)
0.85 -4.0
b) c) d)
-4.5
Propagation loss (dB/m)

0.80
FOM=EFR/Prop. loss
-5.0 0.18

-5.5
0.75 0.16
EFR

-6.0
FOM

-6.5 0.14
0.70
-7.0
WSi =350 nm, 0.12
0.65 WSi =350 nm, -7.5

HAu=50 nm HAu=50 nm
-8.0 0.10
0.60 HSiO2=50 nm HSiO2=50 nm
-8.5
0.08
200 250 300 350 400 200 250 300 350 400 200 250 300 350 400

HSi (nm) HSi (nm) HSi (nm)

Figure 4. a) Mode confinement factor of standard and SWG HPWG, b) EFR in the upper cladding versus top silicon layer thickness (HSi),
c) Propagation loss versus top silicon layer thickness (HSi), d) FOM of the standard and SWG HPWG. Note: The colour label shown in the figure
is for EFR, propagation loss and FOM.
∆𝑛𝑒𝑓𝑓
𝑆𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒 =
V. MODE SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF STANDARD ∆𝑛𝑢𝑐
AND SWG HPWG Generally, high Smode over a broad range of nuc is desired for
The mode sensitivity is calculated as the rate of change of sensing applications. For instance, a highly Smode can bring a
effective refractive index (neff) of the fundamental mode large change in neff due to a slight change in ambient refractive
concerning the change in the refractive index of the upper index which is translated in the form of wavelength shift in
cladding medium (nuc). It is expressed as: case of ring resonator sensor devices [27] or higher absorption
of light in case of evanescent field absorption sensors.

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Recently, several evanescent field gas absorption sensors have offered by standard HPWG as shown in figure 5 a,b. The Smode
been proposed [28,29]. Apart from sensing applications, high is exceedingly dependent on HSi which decreases linearly as
Smode can provide a fast switching with low power HSi increases.
consumption in electro-optic modulators [30]. The maximum Smode for both WG configurations is shown at
In this section, we calculated the dependence of neff and Smode HSi = 200 nm. For instance: Standard HPWG offers highest
of standard and SWG HPWG on HSi. The period (ᴧ) of SWG Smode=0.28 for HSi=200 nm which reduces to 0.1 as HSi
HPWG is fixed at 320 nm with a duty cycle of 0.875. The shift approaches 400 nm. However, SWG HPWG shows its
in neff is observed by varying the ambient refractive index to dominance in terms of sensitivity as highest Smode is obtained
1.34-1.38 which corresponds to the refractive index of the at 0.7 for HSi=200 nm which reduces to half at HSi=400 nm as
biological samples. SWG HPWG shows a Δneff=0.2663 for shown in figure 5 c,d. Therefore an optimized WG is highly
Δnuc=0.38 which is more than 2 times higher than the Δneff desired to obtain maximum sensitivity.
Standard HPWG SWG HPWG
Effective refractive index

2.7 2.6

Effective refractive index

2.6 a) b)
2.4
2.5

2.4
2.2
2.3 SWG HPWG, n=1,38
Standard HPWG, n=1,38
2.2 Standard HPWG, n=1,37 SWG HPWG, n=1,37
Standard HPWG, n=1,36
2.0 SWG HPWG, n=1,36
2.1
Standard HPWG, n=1,35 SWG HPWG, n=1,35
Standard HPWG, n=1,34 SWG HPWG, n=1,34
2.0 1.8 SWG HPWG, n=1,0
Standard HPWG, n=1,0
1.9
200 250 300 350 400 200 220 240 260 280 300 320 340 360 380 400

HSi (nm) HSi (nm)

0.30
0.28 Standard HPWG, n=1,34 0.7 SWG HPWG, n=1,34
Standard HPWG, n=1,35 SWG, HPWG, n=1,35
Mode sensitivity
Mode sensitivity

0.26
Standard HPWG, n=1,36 SWG HPWG, n=1,36
0.24 0.6 SWG HPWG, n=1,37
Standard HPWG, n=1,37
0.22 Standard HPWG, n=1,38 SWG HPWG, n=1,38
0.20 0.5
0.18
0.16
0.4
0.14
0.12
0.10
c) 0.3 d)
200 250 300 350 400 200 250 300 350 400
HSi (nm) HSi (nm)

Figure 5. a) Effective refractive index of standard HPWG, b) Effective refractive index of SWG HPWG, c) Mode sensitivity of standard HPWG
versus HSi, d) Mode sensitivity of SWG HPWG versus HSi.

Deposition of Au layer Deposition of SiO2 layer

SiO2
VI. PROPOSED FABRICATION STEPS Au
Au
Substrate Substrate Substrate
The fabrication of the SWG HPWG structure is a Deposition of hard mask and
Etch process and removal of residual
straightforward process which requires a standard CMOS hard mask- Cross-section view
patterning in Cross-section view Deposition of Si layer

microelectronics technology. The proposed fabrication steps Si

SiO2
Au
of SWG HPWG is shown in figure 6. The first step involves Substrate Substrate Substrate
the deposition of 50 nm Au layer on a quartz substrate. The
Etch process and removal of
deposition can be performed via magnetron sputtering. To residual hard mask- Side view Deposition of hard mask and patterning in
Top view
achieve strong Au-substrate adhesion, quartz substrate must be
plasma cleaned through substrate bias, then deposit thin
Substrate
titanium (Ti) layer, and finally deposit a thin Au layer. For Au
Figure 6. Proposed fabrication steps of SWG HPWG
deposition, the substrate voltage should not be high. Next step
is the deposition of 50 nm SiO2 layer followed by 200 nm-300
nm Si layer. Then a patterned hard mask layer is formed on VII. RING RESONATOR BASED ON STANDARD AND
top of Si layer with an appropriate material such as SiN. The SWG HPWG
cross-section view and top view of the sample patterned with a In this section, we utilized a vertical SWG HPWG to model a
hard mask is shown in figure 6. The final WG geometry is ring resonator design for gas sensing applications. The spectral
formed by a dry etch process. The residual mask layer is then characteristics of the proposed design are compared with the
removed via the wet-etching process. The cross-section view ring resonator design based on standard HPWG with the same
and side view of the final WG geometry is also shown in geometric parameters to perform a legitimate analysis. The
figure 6. most precise method to compute E-field propagation in optical
WGs is via full 3D FEM approach. On the other hand, for
large WG geometries, this approach is computationally

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demanding and time-consuming, therefore, it is not normalized transmission spectrum of the ring resonator for the
appropriate for large parametric sweeps. That is why the wavelength range of 1500 nm to 1600 nm containing 5
transmission spectrum and E-field distribution in ring resonance dips. For the manifestation of coupling, WSi of the
resonator designs are simulated using 2D-FEM. The graphic ring is maintained at 300 nm. The maximum extinction ratio
representation of ring resonator design based on vertical SWG (ER) of 62.8 dB is obtained at λres= 1539.45 nm which shows
HPWG is shown in figure 7a. The TE-polarized light is a strong light coupling to the ring.
injected in the standard ridge bus WG which is side coupled to
the ring based on SWG HPWG. The light is coupled to the Table II
ring when the resonance condition is satisfied. The width of Geometric parameters of ring resonator design based on SWG
bus WG is fixed at 400 nm. The evanescent field in the HPWG.
ambient medium is enhanced by reducing the width of the R (nm) WSi WAir WAu l-w g d
outer silicon ring WG (WSi ). The E-field distribution in the (nm) (nm) (nm) (nm) (nm) (nm)
ring resonator at resonance wavelength (λres) is presented in 4075 200, 250, 300 80 100 280 40 100
figure 7b. The geometric parameters of the ring resonator used
in the analysis are tabulated in Table II. Figure 7c presents the
a) b) c)
SWG HPWG based ring resonator

ER= 1.48 dB

ER= 2.54 dB

ER= 4.69 dB
ER= 3.88 dB
d R

ER= 62.8 dB
Air

Substrate λres=1539.45 nm
WAir
Figure 7. a) Schematic of SWG HPWG based ring resonator, b) E-field distribution in the ring resonator at λres. The geometric parameters of the
ring are WSi=300 nm, WAir=80 nm, WAu=100 nm. c) Normalized transmission of the ring resonator for the wavelength range of 1500 nm to 1600
nm.

The ambient refractive index is varied between 1.0001-1.0005
which corresponds to the refractive index of some toxic gases
such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, among
others. The transmission spectrum is calculated by using the
parametric sweep function for the wavelength range of 1500-
1600 nm which falls in the SWG wavelength region as
demonstrated in figure 3. The shift in λres, sensitivity, FOM
and Q-factor is presented in figure 8. It can be seen from
figure 8 a), that shift in λres increases as the width (WSi )
decreases. As SWG HPWG has strong EFR, therefore ring
resonator based on these WGs has greater λres shift at WSi=200
nm. This fact leads to a higher sensitivity of the device which
is calculated as Δλ/Δn as shown in figure 8 b). In [31], Talebi
et al. used 90 nm thick strip WG to enhance bulk sensitivity.
The best sensitivity of SWG HPWG based ring resonator is
1000 nm/RIU which is comparable to the sensitivity of purely
plasmonic sensors [32] and almost twice the bulk sensitivity of
400-500 nm/RIU demonstrated in ring resonator based on
SWG ridge WG [12].
For sensors, it is desirable to have a high optical resolution,
therefore, FOM should also be considered while designing the
ring resonators. FOM is calculated as S/FWHM, where FWHM
is the full width at half maximum. The ring resonator designs
with relatively thin width of the Si outer layer (WSi =200 nm)
has broad FWHM which results in relatively low FOM as
compared to sensor designs having WSi=250 nm and 300 nm
as shown in figure 8 c).
The Q-factor is defined as λres/FWHM. Integrated resonators
with high Q-factors are predominantly valuable for a wide
range of applications such as narrow-bandwidth filters, high-
efficiency non-linear optic devices, high performance lasers
and high sensitivity sensors. Sensor designs with WSi=300 nm
tend to have higher Q-factor as shown in figure 8 d).
Therefore, it is always a compromise between high Q-factor
and high EFR. For better visualizing, the best sensor
characteristics of the standard and SWG HPWG based ring
resonator are presented in Table III.

Table III
Sensor performance of standard and SWG HPWG based ring resonator
Sensor performance Standard HPWG based ring resonator SWG HPWG based ring resonator
WSi=300 (nm) WSi=250 (nm) WSi=200 (nm) WSi=300 (nm) WSi=250 (nm) WSi=200 (nm)
S (nm/RIU) 200 375 562 375 625 1000
FOM 370.4 506.75 189.3 625 422.3 287.35
Q-factor 2919.3 2094.94 510.18 2569.8 1021.9 441.05

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Journal
8 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. XX, NO. XX, MONTH X, XXXX

a) 0.45 b) 1000
0.40
900
0.35
800

S (n)
0.30
700
0.25
600


0.20 500
0.15 400
a) 0.45 b)
0.10 300 0.40 SWG HPWG, WSi =200 nm
0.05 200 0.35

0.00 100 0.30 SWG HPWG, WSi =250 nm

1.0001 1.0002 1.0003 1.0004 1.0005 1.0001 0.251.0002 1.0003 1.0004 1.0005
SWG HPWG, WSi =300 nm


RIU 0.20
RIU
c) 650 d) 3000 0.15 Standard HPWG, WSi =200 nm
600 0.10
550 2500
0.05 Standard HPWG, WSi =250 nm

Q-factor
500 0.00
2000 Standard HPWG, WSi =300 nm
FOM

450 1.0001 1.0002 1.0003 1.0004 1.0005

400
350
1500 RIU
300 c) 650 d) 3000
1000
600
250 2500
550

Q-factor
200 500
500
150 FOM 2000
1.0001 1.0002 1.0003 1.0004 1.0005 1.0001 4501.0002 1.0003 1.0004 1.0005

RIU 400
350
RIU 1500

Figure 8. Spectral characteristics of standard and SWG HPWG ring

300resonator, a) Resonance wavelength shift,1000
b) Sensitivity, c) FOM, d) Q-factor
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16646-16653, 2009.
1.0004 1.0005 1.0001 1.0002 1.0003 1.0004

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/JSEN.2020.2991215, IEEE Sensors
Journal
8 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. XX, NO. XX, MONTH X, XXXX

plasma over an extended dynamic range using silicon photonic microring Muhammad Ali Butt was born in 1985. He
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[18] V. R. Almeida, Q. Xu, C.A. Barrios, M. Lipson, "Guiding and confining from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain, in 2015.
light in void nanostructure," Optics Letters, vol. 29, no. 11, pp. 1209-1211, In 2013, he made a research stay with the
2004. Optoelectronic Research Centre (ORC),
[19] L. Zhou, X. Sun, X. Li, J. Chen, "Miniature microring resonator sensor University of Southampton, U.K. In 2018, he was
based on a hybrid plasmonic waveguide," Sensor, vol.11, pp. 6856-6867, a Research Assistant Professor with Nicolaus
2011. Copernicus University, Poland. He currently
[20] X. Sun, D. Dai, L. Thylen, L. Wosinski, "Double-Slot Hybrid plasmonic works as a Senior Scientist with Samara National
ring resonator used for optical sensors and modulators," Photonics, vol. 2, pp. Research University, Russia and Warsaw
1116-1130, 2015. University of Technology, Poland. His research
[21] M. A. Butt, S. N. Khonina, and N. L. Kazanskiy, “Hybrid plasmonic interests are optical waveguides, plasmonic
waveguide-assisted metal-insulator-metal ring resonator for refractive index sensors, photonic sensors, diffractive optics, and
sensing,” J. Mod. Opt., vol. 65, no. 9, pp. 1135–1140, 2018. optical filters.
[22] N. T. Huong, C.M. Hoang, "Modal characteristics and the tunability of
horizontal hybrid gap plasmonic waveguide," Applied Physics B. vol. 126, pp. Nikolay Lvovich Kazanskiy was born in 1958.
27, 2020. He received the bachelor’s (Hons.) degree in
[23] D. Dai, Y.Shi, S. He, L. Wosinski, L. Thylen, "Gain enhancement in a applied mathematics, and the master’s and Ph.D.
hybrid plasmonic nano-waveguide with a low index or high index gain degrees in physics and mathematics from Samara
medium," Optics Exp., vol.19, no. 14, pp. 12925, 12936, 2011. National Research University (Samara
[24] S. Rytov, "Electromagnetic properties of a finely stratified medium," University) (formerly known as S. P. Korolyov
Soviet Physics JETP-USSR, vol. 2, pp. 466–475, 1956. Kuibyshev Aviation Institute), in 1981, 1988, and
[25] A. Yariv and P. Yeh, Photonics: optical electronics in modern 1996, respectively. He is the Director of the
communications, 6th ed., no. November. 2007. Federal Scientific Research Centre
[26] M. A. Butt, S.A. Degtyarev, S.N. Khonina, N.L. Kazanskiy, "An Crystallography and Photonics, Image Processing
evanescent field absorption gas sensor at mid-IR 3.39 µm wavelength," Systems Institute (IPSI), Russian Academy of
Journal of Modern Optics, vol. 64, no. 18, pp. 1892-1897, 2017. Sciences (RAS). He is also holding a part-time
[27] M. A. Butt, S.N. Khonina, N.L. Kazanskiy, "Sensitivity enhancement of position as a Professor with Technical Cybernetics Sub-Department, Samara
silicon strip waveguide ring resonator by incorporating a thin metal film," University. He is the Manager of the Research and Education Center of
IEEE Sensors journal, vol. 20, no, 3, pp. 1355-1362, 2020. Computer Optics established jointly by Samara University and IPSI RAS. He
[28] M. A. Butt, S.N. Khonina, N.L. Kazanskiy, "Modelling of Rib channel is the Chair of High-Performance Computing with Samara University’s Base
waveguides based on silicon-on-sapphire at 4.67 µm wavelength for Sub-Department at the IPSI RAS. He is the coauthor of 240 scientific articles,
evanescent field gas absorption sensor," Optik, vol. 168, pp. 692-697, 2018. 14 monographs, and 57 inventions. He holds several patents. His current
[29] H. Tai, H. Tanaka, T. Yoshino, "Fiber-optic evanescent wave methane- research interests include diffractive optics, mathematical modeling, image
gas sensor using optical absorption for the 3.392 µm line of a He-Ne laser," processing, computer vision, and nanophotonics.
Optics Letters, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 437-439, 1987. Dr. Kazanskiy is a member of the OSA, SPIE, and IAPR.
[30] H. Yan, X. Xu, C.-J. Chung, H. Subbaraman, Z. Pan, S. Chakravarty,
and R. T. Chen, “One-dimensional photonic crystal slot waveguide for Svetlana Nikolaevna Khonina received the
silicon-organic hybrid electro-optic modulators,” Optics Letters, vol. 41, no. Ph.D. degree in physical and mathematical
23, pp. 5466– 5469, 2016. sciences. She is a Professor with Samara
[31] S.T. Fard et al., "Performance of ultra-thin SOI-based resonators for National Research University. She is a main
sensing applications," Optics Express vol. 22, pp. 14166-14179, 2014. Researcher of the Federal Scientific Research
[32] M. A. Butt, S.N. Khonina, N.L. Kazanskiy, "Plasmonic refractive index Centre (FSRC) Crystallography and Photonics,
sensor based on metal-insulator-metal waveguides with high sensitivity," Image Processing Systems Institute (IPSI),
Journal of Modern Optics, vol. 66, no. 9, pp. 1038-1043, 2019. Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). Her
research interests include diffractive optics,
singular optics, mode and polarization
transformations, optical manipulating, and
optical and digital image processing.

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