An effective response to human biowarfare agent exposure events requires the availability of simple, sensitive, reliable, and manufacturable sensing and diagnostic tools. While ring resonators fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator platform have found wide application as enabling components for biosensors, and have even been commercialized successfully, silicon nitride-based ring resonators have received less attention. We hypothesized that silicon nitride would provide both manufacturing and performance advantages over silicon in a biosensing context. To test that hypothesis, we designed a series of silicon nitride ring resonators. Designs were fabricated at the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics) foundry. We will discuss the design process, optical performance of the manufactured devices, and their use in the label-free detection of biomedically relevant protein targets.
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