High-sensitivity optical biosensor based on cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer and ring resonator using Vernier effect.

We demonstrate an ultrahigh sensitivity silicon photonic biosensor based on cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) and ring resonator with the Vernier effect using wavelength interrogation. Experimental results show that the sensitivities reached 2870 nm/RIU and 21,500 nm/RIU for MZI sensor and MZI-ring sensor, respectively. A biosensing application was demonstrated by monitoring the interaction between goat and antigoat immunoglobulin G (IgG) pairs. The measured results show that 1 ng/ml IgG resulted in 0.035 nm and 0.5 nm wavelength shift for MZI sensor and MZI-ring sensor, respectively. This high performance sensor is promising for medical diagnostic applications.