PCF Based Formalin Detection by Exploring the Optical Properties in THz Regime

Abstract

Introduction: Ongoing amelioration of semiconductor nano-crystal in chemical sensing applications has led the Photonic Crystal Fiber (PCF) as the most appropriate candidate for chemical sensing. A PCF based sensor model has been proposed in this paper. Objective: The aim of this model is to detect formalin at a high level of sensitivity. Method: This sensor model has been designed and simulated in COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS to analyze the sensing performance based on the optical parameters such as relative sensitivity, confinement loss, and effective material loss. Formalin solution is placed into the core and then the simulation is performed in THz regime ranging from 1 to 2 THz to carry out the optical properties. Simulation data collected from COMSOL are used in Matlab to carry out the graphical representation of the optical parameters. Results: Simulation results demonstrate that the sensor model inherits high relative sensitivity of approximately 77.71 % at 1.8 THz. In addition to that, the proposed sensor exhibits zero confinement loss above 1.3 THz and very low effective material loss in the THz regime for the optimum model. Conclusion: All the optical parameters maintain standard and desirable values in the THz regime. Besides, the flexible fabrication of the proposed model is feasible using existing fabrication methods. Simulation results validate the high performance of this proposed model in formalin detection.