Modeling of photonic crystals anti resonant reflecting optical waveguide for sensing applications

Photonic crystals (PCs) along with antiresonant reflecting optical waveguides (ARROWs) are evolving devices in the design of biosensors. In this work modeling of the PC structure is carried out for sensing application. The PCs are the periodic arrangement of air holes on the silicon core material, and those with linear cavity structures have applications in photonics as waveguides, lasers and photon emitters. The PC in our design is used as a waveguide to pass the light from input waveguide to output waveguide. The mode solutions and variational effective index method are used as mathematical modeling tools. The device is modeled and simulated for different configurations of PC rows and by varying the length of the waveguide. The high-quality factor is obtained for the linear cavity fundamental mode photonic structure. The PC ARROW has shown transmission of 94.37% at resonant wavelength of 1.5977 μm. The observed transverse electric amplitude is 0.6013 and quality factor is 5123 for the waveguide. The model presented in this work can be used to detect the sensitivity of the waveguide for liquid samples. In particular, the analyte sample used in the simulation are properties of blood and hemoglobin solution in water. The sensitivity of the waveguide obtained is 38.27 nm per refractive index unit.