Two dimensional photonic crystal angle sensor design

Abstract

We present a novel design for an angle sensor based on photon coupling to internal optical modes of a two dimensional photonic crystal. We show in simulation that an implementation of this design could achieve sensitivities as high as 1.61 × 10 6 V/rad, which in principle allows for angle measurements with a noise floor of 2.98 × 10 −14 rad / Hz at the photodiode noise equivalent power. We discuss the limitations of this design and predict the impact these limitations have on the sensitivity as well as the possible ways to further increase the devices sensitivity. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate experimentally a photonic crystal with an angle sensitive mode.