ACTA PHYSICA POLONICA A, cilt.124, sa.1, ss.50-55, 2013 (SCI-Expanded)
We present a liquid refractive index sensor based on a photonic crystal waveguide slab structure. Sensing mechanism employed in this study is based on the shift in cut-off wavelength as the lattice holes are selectively infiltrated. Three-dimensional plane-wave expansion and finite-difference time-domain methods are used to determine the band structure and transmission spectra, respectively. First, the sensitivity of the device is analyzed for the structure where only the first rows of holes adjacent to the line-defect are infiltrated. In addition, this analysis is repeated for a range of hole diameters. Second, the effects of infiltrated holes which are placed in the line-defect are investigated. As these infiltrated central holes are introduced, the proposed device exhibits 5.3 times improved sensitivity.