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Analysis of ring resonator structure

with quality factor enhancement

Shwetha M., Raksha V, Narayan K.

Shwetha M., Raksha V, Narayan K., "Analysis of ring resonator structure

with quality factor enhancement," Proc. SPIE 11031, Integrated Optics:
Design, Devices, Systems, and Applications V, 1103116 (26 April 2019); doi:
10.1117/12.2520946

Event: SPIE Optics + Optoelectronics, 2019, Prague, Czech Republic

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 Analysis of ring resonator structure with quality factor enhancement
Shwetha M*a, Raksha Va, Narayan Ka
a
Department of ECE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India – 560064

ABSTRACT

In this work, the device is integrated with two bus waveguides and three ring waveguides. The ring and the bus
waveguide is designed with a width of 250nm and a height of 400nm is considered. The mid infrared wavelength of
1550nm is considered as an input source for the coupling of light from the bus waveguide to ring waveguide. The
coupling between the three ring waveguides is also observed. The multimode coupling takes place in the configuration.
The guided mode resonance at 1550nm is observed. The four ports are placed at the inputs and outputs of the bus
waveguide. Here the three ring structure with the bus waveguide is analyzed for spectral properties, where quality factor
is of main concern. If the structure has to be implemented for a lab-on-a-chip application, sensitivity plays an important
role, which in turn is related to the quality factor. Hence the enhancement of the quality factor up to 3000 with three
rings is achieved. Two rings are considered as sensing ring for various parameter analyses with one of the ring as
reference ring. In the designed structure, the phase shift in the transmission spectrum is observed for the bio-sensing
application. The sensor in the ring resonator is based on the refractive index change. The change in the refractive index
of the surrounding medium will change the effective refractive index. Hence the effective refractive index along with the
group index is monitored for the bio-sensing application. A thin layer on the surface of the waveguide is highly sensitive
to refractive index change in the TM mode. The configuration is simulated using Lumerical FDTD as well as Lumerical
Mode solutions. The integrated optical devices has a good platform in bio-sensing application, hence the designed
configuration can be further incorporated for point of care device.

Keywords: ring resonator, quality factor, waveguide, transmittance.

1. INTRODUCTION
Ring resonator biosensors have shown great potential, because they afford highly compact devices. In this structure, the
light propagates through a straight waveguide and it is coupled into a ring waveguide where the light propagates in the
form of whispering gallery modes, generating a resonance at a selected wavelength. The light is then partly coupled to
the ring resonator if the resonance condition is fulfilled leading to resonance peaks at the output spectrum 1-3. The
resonance characteristics of the sensor have to be validated regarding their performance. Common parameters are free
spectral range, extinction ratio, bandwidth, and power. The free spectral range is defined as the separation between two
consecutive resonant wavelengths and has to be lower than the tuning range of the interrogating laser (lower than 100
nm) and larger than the absolute wavelength accuracy of 0.04 nm. At a resonance frequency, the signal lowers 4.
This article introduces the ring resonator sensing principle, describes various ring resonator sensor designs, reviews the
current state of the field, and presents an outlook of possible applications and related research and development
directions. The optical detection is based on a change of signal within the sensing element, while matter is near its
surface. The optical ring resonator is located next to a waveguide guiding light of a certain wavelength. A power peak is
induced into the response signal at certain wavelength of light by the optical ring resonators. At which wavelength the
peak appears depends on the refractive index of the rings5. The biomolecular interaction affecting the guiding properties
of the waveguide (specifically, a variation of the refractive index) via the modification through the evanescent field. The
variation of the refractive index can be evaluated by any of the waveguiding optical properties (intensity, phase, resonant
momentum, polarization, . . . ) and this variation can be correlated with the concentration of the analyte and with the
affinity constant of the interaction, resulting in a quantitative value of the interaction6.
*[email protected]; phone +91 7022086777

Integrated Optics: Design, Devices, Systems, and Applications V, edited by Pavel Cheben,
Jiří Čtyroký, Iñigo Molina-Fernández, Proc. of SPIE Vol. 11031, 1103116 · © 2019
SPIE · CCC code: 0277-786X/19/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.2520946

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 The SOI-based photonic biosensor can be realized by using interferometric or resonant structures. The former one is
usually based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer configuration and the later most often on a ring resonator. Ring
resonators, however, have the advantage over Mach-Zehnder interferometer of a high sensitivity and small footprint,
which allows for a dense sensor-integration 7.
One of the main advantages of ring resonator devices is the possibility of miniaturization as compared with other optical
biosensors. Ring resonators arrays functionalized with clinically relevant biomarkers have also been used to develop
Lab-on-a-chip devices8.

2. DESIGN OF RING STRUCTURE

In the design of the ring resonator structure, the bus waveguides and ring waveguides of silicon material is considered.
The analysis of the structure is performed by using the port monitors of the Lumerical FDTD. In the design the three
rings are connected in parallel to each other. The light travels from the top bus waveguide with Port1 and then couples
with the ring waveguides which are connected in parallel and then passes through the bottom bus waveguide partially
and finally the light will exit through the Port3. The three ring resonator structure is depicted in figure 1.

Port 1

Port 2

Port 3

Port 4

Figure 1: Three ring resonator structure with rings connected in parallel.

The wave will keep resonating inside the circular ring until adsorption and dissipation phenomena end up diminishing
the energy resonating. The Q factor is a dimensionless indication of the efficiency of the resonator by relating the stored
energy to the dissipated energy. A good resonator could have high Q factors. The effective length, L eff, of the device is
directly related to the quality factor, Q, of the ring resonator as in equation(1),

Leff  Q (1)
2n
where n is the resonator refractive index and the resonance wavelength, , is given by:

neff
  2r (2)
m
where r is the ring radius, neff is the waveguide effective refractive index and m an integer number. When a ring resonator
is used as a biosensor, the surface of the ring must be uncovered, allowing the evanescent wave interaction between the
waveguide and the external environment, detecting any refractive index variation at the surface.
This device operates by monitoring the change in the transfer characteristics of the resonator when the analytes are
deposited on the active area. Comparing with ring resonators, they afford higher sensitivities because the light-wave
interacts many times with each analyte due to the resonance recirculation of light within the structure. A biosensor
capable of multiplexed interrogation of biological samples using micro ring resonators can be evaluated.

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 3. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The simulation results are observed using the Lumerical FDTD software. In the design the rings with radius of 3.3µm are
placed parallel to each other. And the rings are placed in between the bus waveguide and the coupling of light is
observed in the E and H fields.

Figure 2: Coupling of lights in the ring and bus waveguide in E-field.

Figure 2 depicts the coupling of light at mid infrared wavelength in electric field is observed. Where the light is allowed
to pass from the Port1 and enters the first ring and couples with the other two rings and another bus waveguide and
finally exits through the Port3. The figure 2 shows the coupling of light at 1.58µm wavelength and the intensity of light
is maximum at the Port1 initially and after multiple round trips it exits through Port3, part of it will be in Port2.

Figure 3: Power at 1.58µm with low power dissipation at Port3.

The power entering at the Port1 initially will be more and after coupling through the three rings and the bus waveguide
the power entering at the Port3 is monitored and it is observed that there is increase in the power. Figure 3 shows the
power coupling in the ring resonator structure.

Figure 4 depicts the transmission of the light through the designed structure. It is observed in the range varied in between
1.5µm to 1.6µm. The transmission is observed with respect to the wavelength, where the transmission is normalized. The
troughs in the transmission plot represents the coupling through the ring waveguides. The difference between the two
peaks gives the free spectral range, which is one of the spectral properties of the optical devices. As long as the light is
inside the ring it will be convenient to observe the analyte or bio-molecule and would be helpful in bio-sensing

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 application and it can later be fabricated for point of care devices. The scattering of light and the transmission plays in
important role in monitoring and indentify the bio-molecule in bio-sensing application.

Figure 4: Transmission at Port 3

The Q-factor has obtained in the range from 1985 - 2545 at two different resonant conditions of the ring resonator at the
wavelength ranging from 1520nm to 1580nm. The Q-factor is the main parameter in the bio-sensing application. The
resonance spectrum is observed at two different peak resonant wavelength and also the resonance of the three rings are
monitored while calculating the Q-factor of the structure. Figure 5(a) shows the spectrum of three rings and 5(b) shows
the resonant peak at two different wavelengths. The plot is observed in terms of the frequency which is in terms of THz.

Figure 5: (a) Spectrum of three rings; (b) Resonant peaks at two wavelegths.

The Q-factor at various wavelengths are observed. The table 1 gives the various values of the Q-factor for the different
wavelengths. The enhanced Q-factor is useful in biosensing application. The Q-factor is the parameter which is related

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 with respect to the various other parameters like FSR, wavelength and the energy stored in the device and many other,
which would be useful in bio-sensing application.

Table 1. Q-factor at various wavelength.

Frequency (THz) / Wavelength(nm) Q-Factor
197.105THz / 1520.98 nm 1985
196.719THz / 1523.96 nm 2260
197.169THz / 1520.48 nm 2281
190.029THz / 1577.61 nm 2350
196.976THz / 1521.97 nm 2545

The major challenge in the silicon photonic biosensor field is to achieve a fully operative lab-on-a-chip platform with on-
chip detection. Most of the work done so far mainly includes the integration of the sensors and the fluidics (which has
emerged as an “Optofluidics”) and the development of discrete components for future integration. In the near future, we
will employ lab-on-a-chip biosensor devices for assessing the safety of our food or beverages, for fast environmental
pollution identification and for the fast identification of illness in emergencies or by diagnostics people in nearby clinics.
We also focus on the development of integrated optical sensors and biosensors based on micro/nanotechnologies, with
high sensitivity and selectivity for application in the environment and/or the functional genomics and proteomics fields 7.

For biosensing purposes, a layer of receptor molecules (as proteins or DNA) that are capable of binding the analyte
molecules in a selective way, has to be previously immobilized on the biosensor surface. When the complementary
analytes are flowing over the surface can be directly recognized by the receptor through a change in the properties of the
sensor. In this way, the interacting components do not need to be labeled and complex samples can be analyzed without
purification. The immobilization of the receptor molecule on the sensor surface is a key point for the final performance
of the sensor8. The immobilization procedure must be stable and reproducible and must retain the stability and activity of
receptor. In this way can allow high sensitivity levels and miniaturization.

4. CONCLUSION
In this work, three ring resonator structure is designed with three rings in parallel and is placed in between two bus
waveguides, where the coupling of light is observed. The Q-factor is calculated with respect to the resonant peaks and an
increase in the Q-factor is monitored in the range varied in between 1985 to 2545. Thus the increase in the Q-factor is
beneficial in bio-sensing applications.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work is supported by Vision Group on Science and Technology, Department of IT, BT & ST, Government of
Karnataka, India. Grant number: VGST - CISEE GRD – 466.

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