Numerical modelling of 1-dimensional silicon photonic crystal sensor for hydrostatic pressure measurement

In this work, a highly sensitive hydrostatic pressure sensor using one-dimensional (1D) photonic-crystal (PC) is designed and analyzed numerically for its sensing performance. The device design has silicon (Si) sensing layer at the top to sense the applied pressure. The proposed sensor performance has been studied for its pressure sensing, by applying boundary load on the sensing layer. The structure is designed, simulated and analyzed using an FEM tool. As the applied pressure is varied from 0 MPa to 10 MPa, resonant mode shifts towards the higher wavelength region. The effect of defect cavity length and the number of periods are also analyzed to choose the optimized value which enhances the sensor performance parameters. Simulation result shows that the proposed sensor has a very high sensitivity of 250 nm/GPa and Q-factor of 11,120 with the transmission of 99.99%.