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This paper reports the design and three dimensional (3D) simulation of a new photonic crystal (PC) pressure sensor. The device is constructed using a GaAs-based 2D PC slab on SiO2 substrate. The strain/stress simulations and also the spectral simulations are done using CST Studio Suite. In this investigation, the sensitivity of the proposed pressure sensor is calculated by considering the variation of the refractive index and also the deformation of the structure. The numerical results show that when pressure is applied, the refractive index variations cause an increment in the resonant wavelength of the transmission spectrum, but the deformation factor cause a decrease in the resonant wavelength. It has been shown that the relationship between the applied pressure and the resonant wavelength of the designed micro-cavity is linear. Based on the simulation results, the quality factor of the designed micro-cavity and the sensitivity of the pressure sensor are 2200 and 3.5 nm / GPa, respectively.