Performance Analysis Of Photonic Crystal Fiber

Biosensor Using Surface Plasmon Resonance

 V. Fouthika
Department of Electronics Engineering
Pondicherry University,
Pondicherry,India
veera.fouthika@gmail.com
P. Samundiswary
Department of Electronics Engineering
Pondicherry University,
Pondicherry,India
samundiswary_pdy@yahoo.com
M. Sivasindhu
Department of Electronics Engineering
Pondicherry University,
Pondicherry,India
sakthi.sindhu28@gmail.com
Abstract— A circular lattice
Photonic Crystal Fiber (PCF)
biosensor based on Surface
Plasmon Resonance (SPR) is
proposed for detecting
unknown analytes with high
sensitivity. A single layer PCF
using SPR is designed. The
outside of PCF is coated with
chemically stable material
gold of thickness 30nm, which
is the active plasmonic
material. The air holes are
placed in a position such that
more evanescent fields are
produced. A Perfectly Match
Layer (PML) is applied to the
outermost layer of biosensor to
analyze the performance of the
sensor such as losses and
sensitivity. The proposed
design the maximum
wavelength sensitivity of
14102nm/RIU (Refractive
Index Unit) with analyte
changing from 1.40-1.43 and
resolution as 6.681×10−5 RIU.
The simulation of this model is
done by using COMSOL
MULTIPHYSICS 5.2a.
Keywords— Photonic
Crystal Fiber (PCF), Surface
Plasmon Resonance (SPR),
Evanescent field, Sensitivity
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the larger
applications area of
Photonic Crystal
Fiber(PCF) based on
Surface Plasmon
Resonance(SPR) have
attracted many researchers.
SPR sensors are used to
analyze sample such as,
glucose monitoring, disease
detection, bio-sensing,
medical diagnostics, bio-
imaging, real time
monitoring and so on. In
SPR sensors the
selection of plasmonic
material is important.
Mostly, the plasmonic
materials such as
copper, silver,
graphene, gold,
aluminium are used as
active material in SPR
sensor. In this paper,
the chemically stable
material gold is used
as active plasmonic
material because it
does not oxidized
easily and it shows
large resonance
peaks to improve
sensing performance
of the biosensor. The
working of PCF based
SPR sensor based on
evanescent field and
hence, the proposed
biosensor structure is
designed to produce
more evanescent
fields.
II. RELATED WORK
Different design structures
of SPR-based PCF sensors
have been investigated
recently. The researchers
have been tried hard to
design structures that
provides maximum
sensitivity with increase in
sensor performance. In Gao
et al. [1], SPR sensor with a
multi-hole fiber was
proposed and the air holes
were coated with gold and
titanium dioxide.
Selectively metal-coated air
holes filled with analytes
were proposed by Yu et al.
[2]. The air holes coated
with graphene–Ag
bimetallic layer, which act
as the analyte channel was
reported by Yang et al. [3].
The silica channel was
coated by a gold layer with
40 nm thickness and its
shows maximum sensitivity
of 1000 nm/RIU reported
by Rifat et al. [6]. SPR
biosensor based on polymer
PCF coated structure
proposed by Dash and Jha
[4] obtained the sensitivity
to 2000 nm/RIU. Recently,
a new concept for
evanescent sensing article
[7] provides amplitude
sensitivity to 266 RIU−1 and
the maximum wavelength
sensitivity to 2200 nm/RIU.
A square array PCF-based
SPR RI sensor was
presented by Liu et al. [20]
with 7250 nm/RIU using
single plasmonic material.
In this paper, a circular
lattice Photonic Crystal
Fiber(PCF) biosensor based
on Surface Plasmon
Resonance(SPR) has been
proposed and investigated
by using Finite Element
Method(FEM), which
detects the refractive index
of the liquid analyte. A thin
gold layer of is used to coat
the outside of PCF. The
proposed design is easy to
fabricate and results shows
the maximum wavelength
sensitivity of 14102nm/RIU
(Refractive Index Unit)
with analyte changing from
1.40-1.43 and resolution as
6.681× 10−5 RIU. The
simulation is carried out by
using COMSOL
MULTIPHYSICS 5.2a.
Through these analyses we
observed that the proposed
model gives better
performance than other
models. The performance
of various PCF based SPR
biosensor is shown in table
[1].
PCF sensor Maximum
amplitude sensitivity (nm/
sensitivity
(RIU−1)
Ref. [4] 80
Ref. [6] 118
Ref. [7] 266
Ref. [12] 47.77
Ref. [19] – 2400
Ref. [13] 72.47
Ref. [14] – 6430Here, we kept the optimum
Ref. [15] – 7700thickness of gold layer d g =
Ref. [21] 318
Proposed – 14102model is used to find the
TABLE 1. Comparison table of
performance of various PCF based
SPR biosensors
III. EXISTING DESIGN
AND NUMERIAL
ANALYSIS
The cross section view of
the existing PCF design
structure is shown in figure
[1]. The smaller air holes of
first and second ring are of
same radius are represented
by r1, r2 respectively. The
radius of center air hole is rc
and the thickness of gold
layer is dg. In this design
structure the center to
center between two air
holes is p. Fused silica is
used as a background
material for this design.
The refractive index of the
fused silica can be obtained
by using Sellmeier equation
[22],
n2 (λ) = 1 + B1λ2 + B2 λ 2 +
λ2 − C1 λ2 − C2
where n is refractive index
of fused silica that depends
on wavelength and λ is the
wavelength in μm. B1, B2,
B3, C1, C2 and C3 are the
Sellmeir constants. The
values of constants are
respectively 0.69616300,
0.407942600, 0.897479400,
0.00467914826,
0.0135120631, and
97.9340025 for fused silica.
Wavelength
RIU)
2000Fig. 1. Design of the existing PCF
1000sensor with p = 2 μm, rc = r2 = 0.2
2200μm, r1 = 0.4 μm, and dg = 35 nm.
3700Ref [21]
2520
900035nm. The Drude-Lorenz
dielectric constant of the
gold and the following
equation distinguished this
model [23],
ωD
2
∆ϵ. ΩL
2
ϵ
= ϵ∝ − −
Au
ω(ω + jγD)
2 2
(ω – Ω ) + jΓL ω
Where ϵAu is the
permittivity of gold, ϵα is
the permittivity at high
frequency and its value is
5.9673. ω, ωD, γD denotes
angular frequency, plasma
frequency, the damping
frequency respectively. Its
values are found in Ref
[21].
IV. PROPOSED DESIGN
The proposed design of
PCF sensor is shown in
figure [2]. The base
material for the proposed
structure is fused silica. The
refractive index of this base
material and dielectric
constant of gold are
calculated by Sellmeier
equation and the Drude-
Lorenz model same as
existing design.
Fig. 2. Design of the Proposed
PCF biosensor with r1 = 0.7 μm, r2
= 0.6μm, r3 = 0.4μm and tAu
=30nm.
In proposed design number
of air holes, size and
position of air holes are
choosen in such a way to
provide high sensitivity.
Here, the thickness of gold
layer reduced as tAu =
30nm. The air hole sizes are
r1=0.7 μm, r2=0.6 μm, and
r3=0.4 μm, respectively.
The analyte channel
thickness is tanal=0.5 μm and
represents analyte
refractive index. The
fabrication of proposed
design can be done through
stack and draw method.
The nanolayer coating of
gold is deposited by high
chemical vapour deposition
(CVD) which offers
minimal surface roughness
with uniform coating and
high efficiency. The
simulation is carried out by
COMSOL
MULTIPHYSICS 5.2a
software.
V. SIMULATION
RESULTS AND
ANALYSIS
Generally, the working of
the PCF SPR sensors are on
the evanescent field. Here,
the evanescent field hits the
gold layer which excites the refractive index(RI) the loss B. PROPOSED RESULTS
free electrons. When the depth have the meaningful The proposed PCF SPR
frequency of the incident change which is shown in sensor supports the
photon and the frequency Fig. 4. fundamental mode and
of the free electrons are some other higher order
matched, it starts to mode. Here, the simulation
resonate this condition is is carried for fundamental
phase matching or mode. In this design, the
resonance condition. A sensor designed in such a
sharp loss peak appears at way to produce more
this condition which is very evanescent field and
sensitive to a layer next to birefringence. The
the metal layer. asymmetric nature of
A. EXISTING RESULTS proposed sensor shows
birefringence and it induces
the difference in effective
mode index of x-
polarization and y-
polarization of fundamental
Wav core mode. Fig. 5 (a) and
(b) electric field strength in
elength(μm)
Fig. 4. (a) Relative confinement
fundamental core guide
loss variation with different mode and surface plasmon
thickness of gold layer with p = 2 polariton(SPP) mode.
μm, rc = r2 = 0.2 μm, r1 = 0.4 μm
for analyte RI of 1.36 and
1.37.Ref[]
It is observed that by
increasing gold layer
thickness the loss depth
varies and loss peaks shifts
Fig. 3. (a) Surface mode of with larger wavelength.
proposed structure (b) SPP mode Sensitivity is used to
of proposed structure (c) The measure the performance of
relation of radiation between the
fundamental core-guided mode PCF-based SPR sensor. The
and SPP mode with na = 1.37 and following formula [25] is
dg = 35 nm. Ref [21]. used to compute sensitivity,
Sλ (nm/RIU) =
Fig. 3 displays the loss Δλpeak / Δna
spectrum of core mode and (4)
the effective refractive
index of core mode and spp where Δλpeak is used to
mode for the existing indicate the distinction of
design. Here, the sharp loss wavelength peak shifts and
peak occurs at wavelength Δna is used to indicate the
Fig. 5. (a) and (b) represents
of 0.71μm. The maximum difference of analyte
electric field of fundamental core
energy is transfer from core refractive index RI. The
guided and surface plasmon
mode to SPP mode and this resolution of sensor is polaritons mode with radius of air
wavelength is resonant calculated by the following holes r1 = 0.7 μm, r2 = 0.6 μm, r3 =
0.4μm, na = 1.40 and tAu = 30nm.
wavelength. The equation [25],
confinement loss is R(RIU) = Δna ∗
calculated by using the Δλmin/ Δλpeak
following equation [24], (5)
By using, wavelength
α = 8.686 × k0. Im[n eff] × 10 interrogation method
existing design shows the
Where, k0 = 2π/λ denotes maximum wavelength
the number of free space, λ sensitivity of 9000 nm/RIU
denotes the operating and resolution as 1.11×10-
wavelength and Im[neff] 5
.
represents the imaginary
refractive index value. For
the variation of gold
thickness and analyte

Fig. 6. The relation of radiation
between the fundamental core-
guided mode and SPP mode with
na=1.40, with radius of air holes r1
= 0.7 μm, r2 = 0.6 μm, r3 = 0.4μm,
na = 1.40 and tAu = 30nm.
Fig. 6. Shows the
confinement loss and real
effective index of
fundamental core guided
mode and surface plasmon
polariton mode. Here, the
resonance condition occurs
at wavelength of 902nm. At
this resonant wavelength
real effective index of core
mode and SPP mode are
same.
Fig. 7. For different analyte
refractive index loss peak shifts
with increasing wavelength with
parameters: r1 = 0.7 μm, r2 = 0.6
μm, r3 = 0.4μm, and tAu = 30nm.
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Fig. 8. Loss spectra of proposed highly sensitive gold-coated
sensor for different radius of air
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