Dual-core gold coated photonic crystal fiber plasmonic sensor: Design and analysis

A simple circular lattice dual-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based plasmonic sensor is numerically investigated in this paper within the visible to near-infrared (450 nm to 1150 nm) region. To examine the sensing performances and the guiding properties of the sensor, Finite Element Method (FEM) based mode solver software is applied in the presence of Perfectly Matched Layer (PML) and Scattering Boundary Conditions (SBC). Chemically inoperative plasmonic material gold is deposited at the outer surface of the raised sensor to create the Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) effect. This sensor proffers the maximum wavelength sensitivity of 11,200 nm/RIU and the amplitude sensitivity of 505.037RIU(-1) according to the simulation results. It also allows the maximum Figure of Merit (FOM) of 275RIU(-1) along with the sensor resolution of 8.92 x 10(-6) RIU for wavelength sensing within the RI range of 1.33 to 1.44. Moreover, the impact of various structural parameters (e.g. air hole, pitch, plasmon layer thickness) on the sensing performance of the structure is also described in detail. All these results indicate that this fabrication friendly, highly sensitive sensor can be a promising applicant in the field of biosensing.