In this paper, a simple, miniature, and highly sensitive photonic crystal fiber (PCF)-based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor is proposed. The target analyte and the plasmonic material are at the outer surface of the fiber making practical applications feasible. A 30-nm gold (Au) layer supports surface plasmons. A thin titanium dioxide (TiO2) layer is used to assist adhesion of Au on the glass fiber. The fiber cross section is formed purely by circular-shaped holes simplifying the preform manufacturing process. A high-birefringence (hi-bi) fiber is obtained by means of an array of air holes at the center of the fiber. A finite element method (FEM) is employed to analyze the surface plasmon properties of the proposed PCF-SPR sensor. By optimizing the geometric parameters, a maximum wavelength sensitivity (WS) of 25 000 nm/RIU and an amplitude sensitivity (AS) of 1411 RIU-1 for a dielectric refractive index (RI) range of 1.33-1.38 are obtained. Moreover, an estimated maximum resolution of 4 × 10-6 and a figure of merit (FOM) of 502 are obtained that ensures high detection accuracy of small refractive index (RI) changes. Owing to its sensitivity and simple architecture, the proposed sensor has potential application in a range of sensing application, including biosensing.
