Photonic crystal microcavity as a highly sensitive platform for RI detection

In this paper, we propose a new design principle of two-dimensional photonic crystal refractive index sensors with high transmission and sensitivity simultaneously. The proposed sensor is made of two waveguide couplers and one microcavity which is obtained by varying the radius of one air hole in the center of PC structure. The microcavity is separated from the input and output waveguides by many holes of the PC. It is shown that by injecting an analyte such as gas or a liquid into a sensing hole, and thus changing its refractive index, a shift in the resonant wavelength may occur. The transmission spectra, quality factor and sensitivity of the sensor have been analyzed numerically by the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. The sensitivity value of the sensor has been found to be 668 nm/(RIU with minimum detection limit of 0.002 RIU), which proves the ability of the structure to produce biosensor PhC.