Hexagonally clustered Photonic Crystal Fiber based SPR sensor design

Abstract

4 Abstract Photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based surface plasmon resonace (SPR) sensors are well known for distinguishing unknown analytes. These biosensors can identify certain scope of refractive indicess successfully. A hexagonal model with bunched air holes based surface plasmon resonance sensor is proposed in this paper. Gold and titanium di-oxide is utilized as the active plasmonic material. It is put on the outer surface of the PCF. For detection reason, the unknown analyte flow is situated at the external surface of the PCF. By utilizing the finite element method (FEM), sensing performance is examined. The proposed sensor illustrates greatest amplitude sensitivity of 4235 RIU - 1 and greatest wavelength sensitivity of 10000 nm/RIU at refractive index 1.40 for X-polarization. Maximum amplitude sensitivity of 4314 RIU - 1 and maximum wavelength sensitivity of 11000 nm/RIU were obtained for Y-polarization. This PCF based sensor can detect the refractive indices from 1.36 to 1.41. Moreover, performance of the sensor is examined by fluctuating the value of various parameters. These are gold thickness, titanium di-oxide thickness, pitch, analyte thickness and air hole diameter. The proposed sensor can identify biological analytes for its high sensitivity, improved sensing resolution and reasonable linearity. To our knowledge, this is the highest sensitivity for an SPR in published literature, and facilitates future development of sensors for accurate and precise analyte measurement