Design of Environmental Biosensor Based on Photonic Crystal Fiber with Bends Using Finite Element Method

Abstract

Copyright © 2015 The Author(s). In this paper, a biosensor based on photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is proposed and designed using Full-Vectorial Finite Element Method (FVFEM). The proposed PCF sensor consists of three concentric circles surrounding the core. The key optical sensor characteristics such as sensitivity, the field profiles and real part of the refractive index of the proposed PCF structure are investigated by employing the FVFEM. The proposed sensor can be deployed for environmental sensing when the PCF active region is filled with either analytes such as liquids or gas. By careful selection of the design parameters such as the radius of the sensing circle, the diameter of air holes in the core region and hole to hole spacing, Λ, the sensitivity analytes is determined. Our simulation results show that, the electric field distribution is primary localized in the third concentric circle with a radius of 16 μm. Effects of PCF bending on the sensitivity is also studied and reported.