Research on photonic crystal fiber based on a surface plasmon resonance sensor with segmented silver-titanium dioxide film

A photonic crystal fiber based on a surface plasmon resonance sensor coated with segmented silver-titanium dioxide (Ag-TiO2) film is proposed for microfluid refractive index sensing. The sensing properties of the designed sensor are analyzed numerically by the full-vectorial finite element method. The results display that the wavelength sensitivity can be tuned by the thickness of the TiO2 film and segmented number and angle of the Ag-TiO2 film. It is observed that an average sensitivity of 6329 nm/RIU for refractive indexes ranging from 1.330 to 1.360, and a maximum wavelength sensitivity of 10600 nm/RIU with a high wavelength resolution of 9.43 x 10(-6) RIU, can be achieved in the sensing range of 1.350 to 1.355. In addition, it also shows a maximum amplitude sensitivity of 633.4001 RIU-1, and the maximum figure of merit is 303 with n(a) varying from 1.330 to 1.360, which can be applied to the field of chemical and biological analysis. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America