Ultrasensitive photonic crystal fiber refractive index sensor

We introduce a microfluidic refractive index sensor based on a directional coupler architecture using solid-core photonic crystal fibers. The sensor achieves very high sensitivity by coupling the core mode to a mode in the adjacent fluid-filled waveguide that is beyond modal cutoff, and with strong field overlap. We demonstrate the device through the selective infiltration of a single hole with fluid along a microstructured optical fiber. A detection limit of 4.6 x 10(-7) refractive index units has been derived from measurements with a sensitivity of 30,100 nm per refractive index unit, which is the highest for a fiber device to date. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America