FABRICATION AND PACKAGING OF INTEGRATED CHEMO-OPTICAL SENSORS

This paper describes the design and fabrication of a sensitive integra ted chemo-optical sensor supplied with on-chip fiber-to-waveguide conn ectors. The sensor is designed for TE-polarized light with wavelength of 633 nm. The fiber-to-chip connectors are based on easily fabricated silicon V-grooves combined with a smooth sawcut. The sawcut is defini ng the channel waveguide endface. The sensor is based on a phase modul ated Mach-Zehnder interferometer, using the electro-optic effect of th e waveguiding material zinc oxide (ZnO). The fiber-to-chip connector u nits have a typical coupling efficiency of 0.1-1%. The electro-optical voltage x length product V-pi is 15 +/- 4 V cm at frequencies above 1 00 Hz. Preliminary experiments on the general (passive) sensor respons e showing its expected high sensitivity are discussed.