Temperature-insensitive cascaded micro-ring resonator silicon photoelectric sensor based on wavelength interrogation for HSA detection

Silicon-based optical biosensors have garnered significant interest since their inception. They are, however, susceptible to temperature fluctuations in a controlled environment. In order to address this issue, we provide a solution including the utilization of a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) cascaded micro-ring resonators (CMRR) biosensor that is designed to be insensitive to temperature changes. It consists of two ring resonators exposed to the reference solution and analyte, respectively, their radius and waveguide width are designed to meet the temperature-insensitivity criterion of the CMRR sensor. The results of experiments indicate that by real-time monitoring of the envelope peak drift in the transmission spectrum of the sensor, the bulk refractive index (RI) sensitivity is 2940.71 nm/RIU, the limit of detection (LOD) is 3.1×10−5 RIU, and the temperature sensitivity is less than 40 pm/℃. Furthermore, the sensor was applied for HSA detection, with a calculated LOD of 18.09 ng/mL. The effect of temperature on HSA detection is much smaller than that of a CMRR sensor without athermal design. The sensor demonstrates high sensitivity and temperature insensitivity, and the absence of negative thermo-optic coefficient materials or supplementary temperature control mechanisms simplifies its practical applications. It can be made by a large array to detect different type protein molecules for high throughput multiparameter analysis.