A photonic crystal fibre (PCF) based alcohol sensor with extremely low birefringence has been proposed for different alcohol analytes of propanol, butanol and pentanol, operating within 0.8 to 2.0 µm wavelength. A structural design of three layers of circular cladding air holes with three elliptical core holes has been designed and simulated to distinguish the capabilities of the PCF as a sensor, which accomplished high relative sensitivity, low confinement loss and extremely low birefringence. At the examined optimum wavelength of 0.8 µm, the assessed relative sensitivities are 93.3%, 88.7% and 82.2% for propanol, butanol and pentanol, respectively, and confinement losses of 9.80 × 1/10 13 dB/m for propanol, 4.91 × 1/10 13 dB/m for butanol and 1.03 × 1/10 13 dB/m for pentanol. The birefringence of the proposed PCF is about 0.0001 for all the selected test analytes. Moreover, considering the simple cross-sectional design, it shall be easily fabricated for practical alcohol detection.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.