High-performance 2D photonics MOEMS pressure sensors

A pressure sensor design is proposed based on Micro Opto-electro-mechanical systems (MOEMS) and Photonic Crystal (PhC). The objective of the proposed work is to measure pressure in the higher range. The performance of two resonator structures, ring and triangular structures made of silicon (Si) are designed and compared. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) tool is used for two-dimensional (2D) modeling and simulation of the resonator structures. Pressure can cause deformation resulting in a shift in wavelength. Excess pressure can affect the overall structure, reducing the sensitivity of the sensor. Hence maximum of 0 to 3 Giga Pascal (GPa) of pressure is used for sensitivity. The resonant wavelength shift for different loads is observed and tabulated. Ansys Multiphysics is the modeling tool used to extract the mechanical parameters. Through a literature study, it is found that there are sensors developed by using PhC to measure pressure. From the simulation study, it is accomplished that the triangular resonator has provided good performance compared to the ring resonator between 0 and 2 GPa. Further, the ring resonator provided better performance between 2 and 3 GPa. This is because the propagation loss of the triangular structure is less compared to the ring structure. For the designed ring resonator structure, the Quality factor (Q-factor) obtained is 1634 and for the triangular structure, Q-Factor is 1047 for a 2 GPa pressure. The novelty of the proposed design is the ring and triangular structures and this resulted in a significant improvement of the Q-Factor compared to the published Q-Factor of 150. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Bharati Vidyapeeth's Institute of Computer Applications and Management.