Ultra-high sensitivity plasmonic sensor based on D-shaped photonic crystal fiber with offset-core

Abstract

We propose a novel D-shaped offset-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) sensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) for the liquid refractive index (RI) measurement. The D-shaped structural design makes the placement of the liquid to be tested more convenient. The offset-core is designed to improve the sensitivity of the SPR sensor. The optical propagation characteristics of the proposed sensor were investigated by the finite element method (FEM). Numerical results show that more energy of the core mode transfers to the gold surface as the analyte RI increases. The wavelength sensitivity increases with the increase of RI, and the maximum wavelength sensitivity can reach to 42,000 nm/RIU. What’s more, the maximum amplitude sensitivity is up to 2204.49 RIU−1. The proposed sensor shows excellent performances in terms of wavelength sensitivity and amplitude sensitivity than some previous reported sensors. We believe that it can become a favorable competitor in the liquid RI measurement fields.