THz spectroscopic sensing of liquid chemicals using a photonic crystal fiber

Abstract

A photonic crystal fiber based highly sensitive sensing mechanism is proposed, in the terahertz frequency band, able to detect a wide range of analytes, such as toxic or non-toxic chemicals and illicit drugs. The proper optimization of the PCF structure increases the light-matter interaction in the core, which results in a high relative sensitivity of about 94.0% with negligible confinement loss at the optimum frequency. Few liquids, chemicals, and drugs are considered to justify the sensing mechanism: a relative sensitivity of 99.60% can be achieved for the maximum porosity of core while ketamine was the analyte. Other fiber properties are also analyzed to check the feasibility of the proposed fiber with standard fiber and have obtained good performance. Therefore, the sensor may find applications to sense a wide range of analytes, non-toxic and toxic chemicals, as well as illicit drugs for example, in the THz region.

Terahertz Sensing Based on Photonic Crystal Fibers

“…[44] lower confinement loss (< 10 dB À9 dB/m) can be achieved from PCF-based sensor in Ref. [46]. Moreover, the relative sensitivity and loss are also dependent on the test sample also.…”

“…This loss comes from the solid materials around the core. The THz wave loss characteristics of benzene, ethanol, and water sensors in The following comparison shows the guiding characteristics for hybrid structured sensors [34,35,40,42,46,48] and conventional structured sensors [33, 36-39, 41, 43-45, 47, 49-51] in terahertz regime.…”

Many Facets of Photonic Crystals: From Optics and Sensors to Energy Storage and Photocatalysis

“…Sensors for chemical and biological species are consistently emerging from the literature. Gas sensors for CO 2 , [ 344 ] N 2 O [ 345 ] and CH 4 /HF, [ 346 ] chemical sensors for kerosene concentration in fuel [ 347 ] and detecting illicit drugs, [ 348 ] health monitoring biosensors for glucose [ 349 ] and cholesterol [ 350 ] and health diagnostic sensors for detecting various types of cancer cells [ 351–353 ] are among some of the emerging applications for PhC fiber sensors. Some PhC fiber sensor research aims to improve the selectivity and sensitivity of detections by combining the waveguide mechanism of the fiber with the surface plasmon effect, [ 354–356 ] incorporating metal particles or thin metal layers into the fiber to enhance detection sensitivity.…”

“…Sensors for chemical and biological species are consistently emerging from the literature. Gas sensors for CO 2 , [344] N 2 O [345] and CH 4 /HF, [346] chemical sensors for kerosene concentration in fuel [347] and detecting illicit drugs, [348] health monitoring biosensors for glucose [349] and cholesterol [350] and health diagnostic sensors for detecting various Figure 23. a) Microscopy image of a hollow core silica PhC fiber designs engineered with an 8.2 µm diameter hollow core surrounded by a 7-layer silica PhC used as a waveguide for 1064 nm radiation.…”

Performance evaluation of photonic crystal fibre sensor for controlled drugs detection: a simulation approach

“…Researchers have also proposed PCF sensor designs to detect the same controlled drugs that have achieved better results. Rahman et al [22] designed a PCF sensor with a hexagonal arrangement of seven slotted core holes and parallel struts, achieving relative sensitivity results of 94.78% and 94.87% for detecting amphetamine and ketamine, respectively. In a subsequent study [23], an improved PCF sensor structure was proposed, consisting of a porous hexagonal core with four strut holes, achieving higher relative sensitivity results of 98.44%, 98.72%, and 99.33% for detecting cocaine, amphetamine, and ketamine, respectively.…”