A Simple Side-Polished Microstructured Fiber Refractive Index Sensor with Ultra-Wide Measurement Range Based on Surface Plasmon Resonance
摘要
A gold-coated D-type photonic crystal fiber (PCF) sensor with a micro-opening structure was developed. This sensor realizes the detection and measurement in the infrared band. The ultra-wide detection range of the analyte refractive index (RI) is from 1.25 to 1.37. The optimal structural parameters of this sensor are gold film t = 50 nm, arc-shaped opening radius r = 2.5 µm, and polishing depth h = 6.0 μm. The Y-polarized sensitivity mean wavelength achieved 2188.27 nm/RIU. Moreover, the influence of the fiber length on the sensor efficiency has been researched. When the length increases from 100 to 300 µm, the normalized transmission intensity decreases, but the formant position remains unchanged and the sharpness increases, which is conducive to improving the resolution. Under the premise of ensuring wavelength sensitivity, moderately increasing the length (such as from 200 to 300 µm) can enhance signal recognition, while shortening the length to 100 µm still keeps the formant clear, meeting the actual detection requirements. The fiber sensor has good application prospects in fields such as biomedicine, food safety, and environmental monitoring.