Surface plasmon resonance sensor based on photonic crystal fiber filled with core-shell Ag-Au nanocomposite materials

A numerical study of a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor based on photonic crystal fiber (PCF) filled with core-shell Ag-Au nanocomposite materials for measurement of refractive index of the analyte is presented. Considering the design flexibility and improved optical properties of the core-shell bimetallic nanocomposite materials, the proposed sensor is demonstrated to achieve high spectral sensitivity, high detection accuracy, and sensing spectra tuning ability. Meanwhile, the existence of the gold shell can protect the silver core from oxidation, which means high system stability and long lifetime. Based on numerical simulations, the influences of structural parameters of the sensor on sensing properties are discussed. Furthermore, the parameters are optimized by analyzing the simulation results to achieve better performance. It is observed that a high average spectral sensitivity of 5940 nm/RIU with the resolution of 1.68 x 10(-5) RIU in the sensing range of 1.33 to 1.38 can be achieved. (C) 2016 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)