Compensation of drift by using a multichannel integrated Young interferometer

Polymer-based integrated Young interferometer (YI) sensor chips have proven to be sensitive and have potential to be mass-manufactured. The sensing method is however, disturbed by the mechanical drifts, thus requiring well stabilized and isolated measurement setups that limit its applicability to low-cost readers for rapid diagnostics. In this paper we derive a method for the compensation of mechanical drift by using a multichannel integrated YI chip having two reference channels. The compensation method was demonstrated by quantitative measurements with a three-channel integrated polymeric YI sensor chip using an undisturbed and a mechanically disturbed setup. By applying the compensation method, the intrinsic drift of the undisturbed setup was reduced up to 84%. With the mechanically disturbed setup, the sample-induced phase-change responses were separated up to a 161 times larger disturbed signal.