4.2. Variation of the confinement loss and the relative sensitivity with wavelength for different values of d1, d0 and l/w
Figure 4 shows the relative sensitivity and confinement loss curves of the relevant parameters of the proposed structure and the comparison between the results. The original value of the proposed design is d
0 = 0.16 μm, d
1 = 1.4 μm, l = 4.5 μm, w = 0.5 μm, Λ
0 = 0.22 μm, and Λ
1 = 1.55 μm. It can be seen from the figure that both the confinement loss and the relative sensitivity increase with the cladding air hole diameter (d
1). Generally speaking, with the increase of cladding holes diameter, the confinement loss of optical fiber will decrease. However, when the air hole diameter in the cladding compared with the core diameter of the fiber is too large, a large part of optical energy will leak into the cladding, which will greatly increase the confinement loss. With the increase of air hole diameter in cladding, the equivalent refractive index of fiber will also decrease. It can be seen that
f will also increase with the increase of the diameter of air holes in the cladding from the definition of
f [
5]. From equations (2) and (3), we can see the relationship between the relative sensitivity and the effective refractive index and
f, so the relative sensitivity will increase accordingly. Hence, d
1 is varied by 1.2μm, 1.3μm, 1.4μm, and 1.5μm, the relative sensitivities are 69.83%, 73.09%, 75.50% and 76.87% and confinement losses are 4.86 × 10
−5 dB/cm, 4.97 × 10
−5 dB/cm, 5.07 × 10
−5 dB/cm, and 5.15 × 10
−5 dB/cm at the wavelength of 1.533μm (i. e. acetylene absorption wavelength), respectively. Also, the computed relative sensitivity at λ = 1.33 μm (i. e. methane absorption wavelength) is 72.83%, 73.50%, 74.45%, and 75.87%, respectively. The confinement loss of the fiber is 3.88 × 10
−5, 3.95 × 10
−5, 4.01 × 10
−5, and 4.07 × 10
−5 dB∕cm, respectively. It can be seen from
Figure 4a that the confinement loss is strongly dependent on the wavelength, which can be verified from Equation (1). When d
1 is kept constant, the relative sensitivity of the proposed structure does not increase linearly with the increase of wavelength in
Figure 4b. This is due to the relationship between relative sensitivity and
f in equation (2), and the fluctuation of relative sensitivity is due to the selectivity of the proposed structure to wavelength, that is, the structure has good transmittance for a specific wavelength. Therefore, the relative sensitivity relative to wavelength shows a special relationship as shown in
Figure 4b. We can use this feature to detect gases that have strong absorption lines at specific wavelengths. It can be seen from the picture that when d
1 = 1.5 um, the fiber has the maximum sensitivity and the maximum confinement loss. At the same time, when the air holes in the cladding are large and the hole spacing is small, it is not easy to manufacture PCFs, that is, it is easy to cause hole collapse. Considering comprehensively, we choose d
1 = 1.4 μm as the optimization parameter of this step.
Figure 5 reveals the effect of d
0 on the relative sensitivity and confinement loss, while other parameters are kept constant. Enhancing the size of air hole around the solid core (d
0) can simultaneously improve the relative sensitivity and confinement loss of the optical fiber sensor. With the size of the central air-hole increases, the interaction between the detection gas and light can be enhanced, but the effective refractive index difference between the core region and the cladding region will enlarge the confinement loss [
5,
38]. However, with the increase of d
0, the difference of refractive index between the cladding and the core increases, which will further increase the confinement ability of the core to light, thus further reducing the confinement loss. Because d
0 increases, the light entering the hole increases, thus further increasing the transmittance
f and increasing the relative sensitivity. So, the relative sensitivities for d
0 values of 0.14 μm, 0.16 μm, 0.18 μm and 0.2 μm are 74.11%, 75.50%, 76.83% and 78.26% and confinement losses are 5.21 × 10
−5 dB/cm, 5.07 × 10
−5 dB/cm, 4.93 × 10
−5 dB/cm and 4.78 × 10
−5 dB/cm at λ = 1.533 μm (i. e. acetylene absorption wavelength). With these d
0 values, the relative sensitivities at wavelength of 1.33μm (i. e. methane absorption wavelength) respectively are 73.21%, 74.45%, 75.75%, 76.91% and confinement loss is slightly varied as 4.07 × 10
−5 dB/cm, 4.01 × 10
−5 dB/cm, 3.97 × 10
−5 dB/cm and 3.94 × 10
−5 dB/cm, respectively. It can take the easy choice of d
0 = 1.2um as an optimal parameter.
Figure 6 illustrates the effect of l/w on the relative sensitivity and confinement loss when other parameters, d
0 = 0.2 μm, d
1 = 1.4 μm, Λ
0 = 0.22 μm, and Λ
1 = 1.55 μm, are kept constant in this PCF. Now, l/w is changed by 7, 8, 9, and 10. When the l/w becomes smaller, the refractive index difference between the cladding and the core will be reduced, which will weaken the confinement ability of the core to light and increase the confinement loss. Among them, when l/w = 7, the curve fluctuation of confinement loss is related to the change of imaginary part of refractive index, but obviously, this has little influence on confinement loss because its magnitude is relatively small. As can be seen from
Figure 6b, the change of l/w has little effect on the relative sensitivity. This is because the slotted holes are located at the outermost periphery of the cladding, and the energy of light propagating in it is very little. So, the relative sensitivity at the wavelength of 1.533μm for this HSC-PCF equals to 78.25%, 78.26%, 78.26% and 78.25% also the confinement loss is 5.26 × 10
−5 dB/cm, 4.78 × 10
−5 dB/cm, 4.78 × 10
−5 dB/cm and 4.78 × 10
−5 dB/cm. For λ = 1.33 μm, the evaluated relative sensitivities are 76.91%, 76.90%, 76.91%, and 76.93%, respectively. The limiting loss of optical fibers are all 3.94 × 10
−5 dB/cm. After completing the optimization design of the proposed HSC-PCF structure, the impact of parameters observed.
Based on the all-sided consideration, to act as a highly sensitive fiber with lower confinement loss, the design parameter of the proposed PCF is found as d0 = 0.2 μm, d1 = 1.4 μm, l/w = 9, Λ0 = 0.22 μm, and Λ1 = 1.55 μm, at which the relative sensitivity coefficient is improved to 78.26% and 76.91% and also confinement loss is 4.78 × 10−5 dB/cm and 3.94 × 10−5 dB/cm at the wavelength of 1.533μm (i. e. acetylene absorption wavelength) and 1.33μm (i. e. methane absorption wavelength).