Design and performance analysis of a highly sensitive photonic crystal fiber based plasmonic sensor

This article presents a highly sensitive plasmonic sensor with a focus on enhancing its capabilities through innovative design and simple geometric structure. A hexagonal-shaped photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based surface plasmon resonance sensor is designed and proposed for external sensing applications. The plasmonic material is made of gold and positioned on the outer side of the designed PCF. For detection purposes, the flow of the testing analyte is introduced on the exterior section of the PCF. The sensing capability of this innovative sensor is meticulously examined using the finite element technique facilitated by the COMSOL Multiphysics software. The suggested sensor, with a refractive index of 1.38, has a maximum amplitude sensitivity and wavelength sensitivity of 765.86 RIU −1 and 8,000 nm/RIU respectively. At the same refractive index, the sensing resolution of the sensor is 1.31 × 10 –5 for amplitude sensitivity and 1.25 × 10 –5 for wavelength sensitivity. Additionally, the sensing capability of the sensor lies in the range of the analyte refractive indices from 1.33 to 1.39. Furthermore, the sensing performance of the designed sensor is analyzed by optimizing the values of several design parameters including air-hole diameter, pitch, and gold layer thickness. The suggested sensor can recognize biological analytes with high sensitivity, improved sensing resolution, and appropriate linearity.