Effect of background materials in photonic crystal fiber sensor

In this study, an automobile wheel type photonic crystal fiber (PCF) has been designed to investigate the effect of the background material on analyte sensing. The designed PCF has a circular hollow core with eight slot-type air holes in cladding. The analysis is performed in the range of 0.5-1.5 THz, and different background materials are chosen during the simulation, for example, fused silica, BK7 glass, Zeonex, and SF2 glass. The sensing performance and light propagation properties are investigated to find out the suitable background material of the designed PCF. At 1 THz, the maximum sensitivity is achieved using fused silica as a background material, while BK7 glass, Zeonex, and SF2 glass show slightly lower relative sensitivity than fused silica. The obtained relative sensitivity is 92.0% of fused silica, 91.2% for BK7 glass, 90.1% for Zeonex, and 88.1% for SF2 glass. In this study, SF2 glass shows the lowest sensitivity, highest effective material loss, and highest confinement loss compares to fused silica, BK7 glass, and Zeonex. In contrast, fused silica shows the highest relative sensitivity, lowest effective material loss, and lowest confinement loss.

Automated summary

In this study, an automobile wheel type photonic crystal fiber (PCF) was designed to investigate the effect of background material on analyte sensing. Different background materials, including fused silica, BK7 glass, Zeonex, and SF2 glass, were chosen for simulation. It was found that fused silica exhibited the highest sensitivity among the tested materials, while SF2 glass showed the lowest sensitivity.