Design and modeling of a graphene-based composite structure optical pressure sensor

In this paper, a novel graphene-based composite structure optical pressure sensor is designed and built with the aid of modeling. A PDMS force-sensitive structural mechanics model is established to optimize the size of the pyramid array distributed on the PDMS layer so that to support high levels of sensitivity and stability. Meanwhile, a graphene waveguide optical model is established to obtain the optimized interference length (L), arm spacing (H) and core width (W), with the objectives of advanced sensitivity, low propagation loss, high resolution. The experimental results show that the pressure sensitivity of the proposed sensor is 17.86 nm/kPa and the maximum pressure that can be detected is 3.40 kPa, which is consistent with the theoretical analysis and verifies the feasibility of the design, also the modeling methods of the graphene-based composite structure optical pressure sensor.