Sensing through suspended solid core photonic crystal fiber

In this paper a study of the characteristics of air-suspended photonic crystal fibers is reported, accounting for the effect of the different geometries, materials and samples. As the sensing mechanism is based on the overlap between the evanescent field and the sample, and in turn on the index step which varies the field confinement, it is crucial to apply a reliable analysis tool such as a full vector finite element based modal solver, which assures accuracy and flexibility whatever the refractive index distribution. For the first time the effect of various index steps, also given by considering three different samples filling the cladding holes, will be investigated showing the influence on the fundamental mode polarization and on the guiding properties of the higher order modes.