Design and simulation of a highly sensitive one-dimensional photonic crystal for different chemical sensing applications

Abstract

The main goal of this study is to construct a highly sensitive one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystal sensing system for chemical detection. Magnesium fluoride and cadmium fluoride, tantalum pentoxide and silicon dioxide, titanium dioxide and silicon dioxide, and zinc sulphide and silicon dioxide are the four different layer materials that have been taken into consideration. Defect layer width ranges from 3500 nm to 5000 nm. Every combination of layers that was taken into consideration exhibited sensitivity that was greater than 500 nm/RIU, according to the simulation results. In that combination of layers, silicon dioxide and titanium dioxide have shown the highest sensitivity of 675 nm/RIU. Defects wider than 4000 nm can achieve 98 % transmission efficiency. The sensor displayed a Figure of Merit (FoM) of 8437, a limit of detection (LOD) of 7.30 ×10-6 RIU, and a maximum quality factor of 13,687.