Monolithically integrated mid-infrared sensor with a millimeter-scale sensing range

On-chip sensors based on quantum cascade laser technology are attracting broad attention because of their extreme compactness and abundant absorption fingerprints in the mid-infrared wavelength range. Recent continuous wave operation microcavity quantum cascade lasers are well suited for high-density optoelectronic integration because their volumes are small and thresholds are low. In this experimental work, we demonstrate a monolithically integrated sensor comprising a notched elliptical resonator as transmitter, a quantum cascade detector as receiver, and a surface plasmon structure as light-sensing waveguide. The sensor structure is designed to exploit the highly unidirectional lasing properties of the notched elliptical resonator to increase the optical absorption path length. Combined with the evanescent nature of the dielectric loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguides, the structure also ensures a strong light-matter interactions. The sensing transmission distance obtained is approximately 1.16 mm, which is about one order of magnitude improvement over the traditional Fabry-Perot waveguide. This sensor opens new opportunities for long-range and high-sensitivity on-chip gas sensing and spectroscopy.(c) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement