Design and numerical analysis of dual-core photonic crystal fiber-based biosensor

Abstract

In this study, the coupling and the relative sensitivity characteristics of a Dual-Core photonic crystal fiber (DC-PCF)-based liquid sensor are evaluated by employing the full-vectorial finite element method (FV-FEM). The simulation results demonstrate that coupling length of the proposed sensor varies between 2[Formula: see text]mm and 0.2[Formula: see text]mm length at wide wavelength range (800–1600[Formula: see text]nm) for low index analytes (1.33–1.36). Besides, birefringence of order [Formula: see text] is reported. It is found that analyte with 1.36 index reaches higher sensitivity levels. On the other hand, the coupling length of the proposed sensor can be optimized with the ellipticity ratio of the central core hole. Bending analysis on coupling length and optical power fluctuations is also reported. It is found that the power flow in one core is increasing almost 90% towards the bending direction. The proposed structure with simple design parameters has a great potential in various biomedical applications including DNA detection and can also be employed as fiber-based refractometer in various sensing applications.