Nowadays, optical devices and circuits are becoming fundamental components in several application fields such as medicine, biotechnology, automotive, aerospace, food quality control, chemistry, to name a few. In this context, we propose a complete review on integrated photonic sensors, with specific attention to materials, technologies, architectures and optical sensing principles. To this aim, sensing principles commonly used in optical detection are presented, focusing on sensor performance features such as sensitivity, selectivity and rangeability. Since photonic sensors provide substantial benefits regarding compatibility with CMOS technology and integration on chips characterized by micrometric footprints, design and optimization strategies of photonic devices are widely discussed for sensing applications. In addition, several numerical methods employed in photonic circuits and devices, simulations and design are presented, focusing on their advantages and drawbacks. Finally, recent developments in the field of photonic sensing are reviewed, considering advanced photonic sensor architectures based on linear and non-linear optical effects and to be employed in chemical/biochemical sensing, angular velocity and electric field detection.

Recently, the Vernier effect has been proved to be very efficient for significantly improving the sensitivity and the limit of detection (LOD) of chemical, biochemical and gas photonic sensors. In this paper a review of compact and efficient photonic sensors based on the Vernier effect is presented. The most relevant results of several theoretical and experimental works are reported, and the theoretical model of the typical Vernier effect-based sensor is discussed as well. In particular, sensitivity up to 460 μm/RIU has been experimentally reported, while ultra-high sensitivity of 2,500 μm/RIU and ultra-low LOD of 8.79 × 10⁻⁸ RIU have been theoretically demonstrated, employing a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) as sensing device instead of an add drop ring resonator.

Slot waveguides are becoming more and more attractive optical components, especially for chemical and bio-chemical sensing. In this paper an accurate analysis of slot waveguide fabrication tolerances is carried out, in order to find optimum design criteria for either homogeneous or absorption sensing mechanisms, in cases of low and high aspect ratio slot waveguides. In particular, we have focused on Silicon On Insulator (SOI) technology, representing the most popular technology for this kind of devices, simultaneously achieving high integration capabilities, small dimensions and low cost. An accurate analysis of single mode behavior for high aspect ratio slot waveguide has been also performed, in order to provide geometric limits for waveguide design purposes. Finally, the problem of coupling into a slot waveguide is addressed and a very compact and efficient slot coupler is proposed, whose geometry has been optimized to give a strip-slot-strip coupling efficiency close to 100%.