Photonic Integrated Circuits for Sensing Applications

The main goal of this work was to study photonic integrated circuits designed and fabricated in silicon-on-insulator for sensing applications, particularly for FBG sensors interrogation and biochemical sensing, exploiting the Mach-Zehnder interferometer as the main building block for the interrogation or as sensing device in the case of biochemical sensing. Specifically, in the case of FBG readout units, the objective was to evaluate the performance of the MZI-based interrogator applying different demodulation methods and comparing the results with those of a commercial unit, whereas the final goal for the interferometric biochemical sensor was to demonstrate the low detection limit capabilities of the integrated device, and the capabilities to detect specific target molecules.