Design and simulation of photonic crystal fiber for highly sensitive chemical sensing applications

Abstract

Photonic crystal fibers (PCF) have demonstrated promising capabilities for liquid sensing applications owing to their distinctive optical properties. This work presents a numerical investigation of a PCF sensor optimized for discriminating water, ethanol, and benzene samples. In the proposed configuration, there are five concentric rings of air holes in the cladding arranged in a hybrid lattice structure, while the core contains only one air hole. The optical properties of the sensor, such as refractive index, power fraction, relative sensitivity, confinement loss, effective area, and nonlinearity, were assessed through a comprehensive analysis utilizing the full vector Finite Element Method within the COMSOL Multiphysics software. All these properties have been meticulously examined through numerical investigation across a broader range of wavelengths spanning from 0.8 to 2.2 µm. The suggested model has high sensitivity, minimal confinement loss, and an exceptional nonlinear coefficient value. At a wavelength of 1.3 µm, the suggested PCF exhibits greater sensitivity of 96.84, 98.12, and 100% for water, ethanol, and benzene, respectively, and nonlinear coefficients of 13.98 W−1 km−1 for water, 13.93 W−1 km−1 for ethanol, and 14.85 W−1 km−1 for benzene, with decreased confinement loss. The created model can be utilized in several research areas, particularly in chemical sensing and bio-sensing, as well as their respective applications.

Keywords

• chemical sensor
• confinement loss
• nonlinearity
• photonic crystal fiber
• relative sensitivity