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We demonstrate a new, highly sensitive evanescent field sensor using silicon-on-insulator (SOI) photonic wire waveguides. Theoretical analysis shows that thin SOI waveguides can provide higher sensitivity over devices based in all other common planar waveguide material systems for the probing of both thin adsorbed biomolecular layers and bulk homogeneous solutions. A Si photonic wire waveguide was incorporated into a Mach-Zehnder interferometer based sensor, configured to monitor the index change of a homogeneous solution. High effective index change of 0.31 per refractive index unit (RIU) change of the solution was measured, confirming theoretical predictions