https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06480-0
Regular Article
Hollow-core PCF-based optofluidic sensor: a soliton pulse-enhanced approach for low refractive index detection
1
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology, 1208, Dhaka, Bangladesh
2
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Bangladesh University of Business and Technology, 1216, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Received:
8
March
2025
Accepted:
24
May
2025
Published online:
14
June
2025
This research work presents a unique hollow star-core photonic crystal fiber for detecting a variety of low refractive index (RI) samples efficiently. The unique sensing mechanism capitalizes on the interaction of ultra-short pulses on a fiber to create a balance between its nonlinearity and higher-order dispersion coefficients (β2 and β3). This phenomenon allows distinct compression of a high-power input pulse for each of the analytes under inspection. The innovative sensing approach revolves around using two unique resulting parameters: compression sensitivity and power upsurge to characterize different analytes, significantly minimizing computational complexity and experimentation time compared to traditional methods. For an input pulse of 1500 W, the proposed sensor reported a maximum compression sensitivity of 10.20%, resulting in a power upsurge of 2810 W. One of the standout features of the proffered sensor is its remarkable versatility. It offers broad tunability across multiple parameters, including input power (1000–1500 W), pulse duration (2–7 ps), and fiber length (0.4–1.05 m). This flexibility enables precise detection of materials in the lower RI region of 1.2–1.3, making it well-suited for sensing material liquid carbon dioxide, liquid oxygen (LOX), trifluoroethanol (TFE), trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), hydrogen cyanide (HCN), etc. All these optofluids play a pivotal role in cryogenic surgeries, emergency oxygen supplies, environmental monitoring and other critical applications, highlighting the sensor’s potential impact across multiple critical fields.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
