Analysis of Graphene-Based Photonic Crystal Fiber Sensor Using Birefringence and Surface Plasmon Resonance

Abstract

We present and numerically characterize a photonic crystal fiber (PCF)-based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor. By adjusting the air hole sizes of the PCF, the effective refractive index (RI) of core-guided mode can be tuned effectively and the sensor exhibits strong birefringence. Alternate holes coated with graphene-Ag bimetallic layers in the second layer are used as analyte channels, which can avoid adjacent interference and improve the signal to noise ratio (SNR). The graphene's good features can not only solve the problem of silver oxidation but also increase the absorption of molecules. We theoretically analyze the influence of the air hole sizes of the PCF and the thicknesses of graphene layer and Ag layer on the performance of the designed sensor using wavelength and amplitude interrogations. The wavelength sensitivity we obtained is as high as 2520 nm/RIU with the resolution of 3.97 × 10 −5 RIU, which can provide a reference for developing a high-sensitivity, real-time, fast-response, and distributed SPR sensor.

A Highly Sensitive Gold-Coated Photonic Crystal Fiber Biosensor Based on Surface Plasmon Resonance

“…Thus, the calculated wavelength sensitivities are 1000, 2000, and 2200 nm/RIU, respectively. The maximum wavelength sensitivity, i.e., 2200 nm/RIU is comparable with previously proposed results [8,12,18,28]. The resolution of the sensor is another important parameter that represents how a small change of analyte RI can be detected by the sensor.…”

“…Assuming that ∆n a = 0.01, ∆λ min = 0.1, and ∆λ peak = 22 nm, we found the resolution of the proposed sensor to be as high as 4.55 × 10 −5 , which is comparable with [8,12,16,18,28]. Therefore, any small change in analyte RI in the order of 10 −5 can be detected with a high degree of accuracy.…”

High Sensitivity Refractive Index Sensor Based on the Excitation of Long-Range Surface Plasmon Polaritons in H-Shaped Optical Fiber

“…Although the attained maximum sensitivity is not as high as the refractive index sensors based on sophisticated MOFs [20,21,23,24], which as mentioned above demand great technical efforts for their fabrication, we aim to provide new ideas for the development of optical fiber SPP sensors. Here, alternatively, we present a sensor characterized by its simplified microstructure based on the long-range surface plasmon excitation, which may be meaningful for the SPP sensor research.…”

“…In recent years, many MOF-SPP sensors with different structures have been proposed to increase the sensitivity of these type of sensors, some of the alternatives are based on the selective filling of the fiber microstrusture with an analyte or with a metal nanowire [17,18]. In other alternatives, metallic layers are deposited on the inner walls of the microstructure holes then filled with analytes [19][20][21][22]. For an updated review of MOF-based SPP sensors see, e.g., [13].…”

Analysis of Hollow Fiber Temperature Sensor Filled with Graphene-Ag Composite Nanowire and Liquid

“…Graphene’s good features as high electron density of hexagonal rings, high surface to volume ratio, broadband optical and plasmonic properties make it an appropriate candidate to be used as a functional coating material for existing plasmonic devices. The graphene-Ag composite nanowire can solve the metal coating and silver oxidation problem, and improve the sensitivity [16,17,18]. The RI of graphene is calculated by [17]: $n_g=3+\frac{i{C}_1\lambda }{3},$ where $C_1$ = 5.446 $\mathrm{sans-serif\mu }$m${}^{-1}$ , $n_g$ is the RI of graphene and λ is the vacuum wavelength.…”