Polymer waveguide sensor with tin oxide thin film integrated onto optical-electrical printed circuit board

In this study, we proposed and fabricated optical sensor module integrated onto optical-electrical printed circuit board (PCB) for gas detection based on polymer waveguide with tin oxide thin film. Their potential application as gas sensors are confirmed through computational simulation using the two dimensional finite-difference time-domain method (2DFDTD). Optical-electrical PCB was integrated into vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL), photodiode and polymeric sensing device was fabricated by the nano-imprint lithography technique. SnO 2 thin film of 100nm thickness was placed on the surface of core layer exposed by removing the specific area of the upper cladding layer of 300 μm length and 50 μm width. The performance of the device was measured experimentally. Initial study on the sensor performance for carbon monoxide gas detection indicated good sensitivity.