Highly sensitive measurement of refractive index over a wide spectrum

Scientists from the OASIS team at LAAS-CNRS have designed and fabricated an integrated optical sensor that measures the refractive index of the surrounding medium with very high sensitivity over a wide spectrum of wavelengths. This novel result opens a new way to realize ultra-sensitive integrated refractometers for the detection of chemical species, with potential applications in environmental monitoring and many industrial processes.

The measurement of refractive indices with a refractometer allows the determination of the concentration of chemical species in air or in liquids for industrial chemical, pharmaceutical or food processes. In order to obtain compact refractometers, it is interesting to realize the measuring device in the form of an integrated optical sensor on a chip. This is what the OpticAl Sensors and smart Integrated Systems - OASIS team is proposing, with an original technology and unprecedented performances: the new integrated sensor displays a very high sensitivity at the state of the art level and remains relatively constant over a wide spectrum of wavelengths. These results were published in the journal Photonics Research.

[...] read the article on CNRS-INSIS website (french only).