UC Berkeley

Integrated optoelectronics has seen its rapid development in the past decades. It has been expanded to many emerging applications beyond optical communication, including environmental sensing, healthcare and remote sensing, etc. This revolutionary progress greatly benefits from device level innovation.

High contrast gratings (HCG) is an emerging element in integrated optoelectronics. Compared to the other elements, HCG has a very rich properties and design flexibility. Two most extraordinary properties of HCG are broadband reflectivity and high quality factor resonance, which are highly desired to solve current challenges in the aforementioned applications.

In this dissertation, we will explore the physical origins of the extraordinary features of HCG, and discuss its applications in optical sensing. Various device innovation for optical sensing, such as HCG slow light hollow-core waveguide for gas sensing, HCG resonator for bio-medical sensing, flexible surface plasma sensor , fast optical phase array and HCG-graphene spatial light modulator for remoting sensing are demonstrated with HCG as the enabling elements. With this breadth of functionality, HCG demonstrate itself as a promising platform for integrated optical sensing.