Fabrication of resonant optical waveguide biosensors using electron gun depositions

Biosensors are used to connect the chemical and physical worlds through the use of a transducer, allowing for quick detection of numerous biological agents. A new biosensor being developed, the resonant optical waveguide biosensor, uses power transfer between two optical waveguides to detect the presence of an antigen. The condition for power transfer is extremely sensitive to changes in index of refraction and allows the biosensor to have a high sensitivity to the antigen presence. Given the high sensitivity of the device, a high degree of accuracy in index of refraction and thickness is required from the fabrication process.; Fabrication of the biosensor transducer was performed from Electron Beam Physical Vapor Depositions. This thesis outlines the development of the protocol for the fabrication process and discusses the improvements made to the deposited films as new capabilities were added to the evaporation chamber such as substrate heat and Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD). Also discussed is the numerous characterization techniques used to optimize the fabrication protocol.