Highly universal sensitive star core photonic crystal fiber (S-PCF)-based sensor for both chemical and biomedical applications

This study proposes a suggested star core photonic crystal fiber sensor that can be utilized in both chemical and biomedical applications. COMSOL Multiphysics software has been used to simulate the proposed sensor. This sensor can operate in the terahertz range, from 1 to 2.6 THz. The suggested star core sensor can be utilized for both a chemical sensor, which has appealing qualities for detecting waterborne bacteria, and a biomedical sensor to detect human body proteins, Chikungunya Virus, and Sickle cell anaemia. The proposed sensor detects differences between the refractive indexes for both normal and infected samples. For chemical purposes, this sensor exhibits minimal values for confinement loss of 2.48 × 10^–13 cm⁻¹, effective material loss of 8.78 × 10⁻³ cm⁻¹, and dispersion of 0.07 Ps/THz/cm, and higher values for relative sensitivity of 98.71%, numerical aperture of 0.1664, and effective area of 2.08 × 10⁵ µm². For biomedical applications, this sensor provides minimal values for confinement loss of 2.76 × 10^–14 cm⁻¹, effective material loss of 1.84 × 10⁻² cm⁻¹, and dispersion of 0.07 Ps/THz/cm, and higher values for relative sensitivity of 99.41%, numerical aperture of 0.209, and effective area of 1.89 × 10⁵ µm². In comparison with other photonic crystal fiber-based sensors, this sensor is highly sensitive and has shallow losses. The core and cladding designs are simple and easy to fabricate.

The proposed sensor evaluation metrics are compared to the existing literature on photonic crystal fiber sensors to ensure their reliability and efficiency.