Simultaneous realization of high birefringence and high sensitivity in elliptical-core photonic crystal fiber

Abstract High-birefringence and high-sensitivity photonic crystal fiber (PCF) sensors have attracted extensive attention in liquid detection and biochemical sensing fields due to their excellent optical transmission performance and flexible structural design. In this paper, we have proposed a PCF with elliptical holes with two different sizes for the generation of high birefringence and high sensitivity for liquid sensing. When the PCF core is filled with propanol solution, the birefringence and sensitivity have been investigated by full-vector finite element method (FV-FEM). Our comprehensive simulations demonstrate that the birefringence can reach up 0.95 × 10 −2 and a relative sensitivity of 67.9 % at the wavelength of 1.42 μm. In addition, the influence of key structural parameters including ellipticity and air hole radius on the birefringence and sensing performance of the PCF have been analyzed. We believe that our research can provide a new and promising approach in liquid component detection and other relevant applications.