A novel technique to measure the sucrose concentration in hydrogel sucrose solution using two dimensional photonic crystal structures

We propose a novel technique to measure the concentration of sucrose in PAm-hydrogel sucrose solution using two dimensional photonic crystal structures consists of air holes. PAm-hydrogel is an organic hydrogels, which is used as biomedical applications. The principle of measurement is based on the linear variation of photonic band gap with the change of dielectric constant of the solution infiltrated in air holes of photonic crystal structure. Plane wave expansion method is used to find the band gap and linear variation (R2 = 0.9949) of photonic band gap with respect to sucrose concentration is observed. Besides this, an excellent linear variation (R2 = 0.9949) of transmitted intensity of light with respect to sucrose concentration is also seen. Since the simulation is based on optical principle, it gives accurate results. This suggests the possible use of 2-D photonic crystal structure as a sucrose sensor. Experimental procedure for measuring the concentration of sucrose is also mentioned.