Clemson University

William Frederick Delaney

Judson D Ryckman

Gabriel Allen

Tahmid Talukdar

Devices and methods of providing a high-performance optical sensor disclose a sensor comprised of a porous material designed to have a multilayer rib-type or multilayer pillar-type waveguide geometry. The resulting porous nanomaterial multilayer-rib or multilayer-pillar waveguide design is optically capable of achieving &#x2dc;100% confinement factor while maintaining small mode area and single-mode character. Fabrication of the device is enabled by an inverse processing technique, wherein silicon wafers are first patterned and etched through well-established techniques, which allows porous nanomaterial synthesis (i.e., porous silicon anodization) either at the wafer-scale or at the chip-scale after wafer dicing. While &#x2dc;100% is an optimal target, typical devices per presently disclosed subject matter may operate with &#x2dc;98-99+%, while allowing for some design adjustments to be made if necessary, and still maintaining high sensitivity. i.e., &#x3e;85-90% confinement suitable in some applications. In those instances, a primary benefit would still be use of the presently disclosed fabrication technology.

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Clemson, SC, United States of America

William Frederick Delaney