A novel Zeonex based photonic sensor for alcohol detection in beverages

Abstract

A novel Zeonex based photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is proposed in terahertz frequency band for alcohol detection in beverages. Characterizing the fiber using Finite Element Method (FEM), simulation results shows an extremely high relative sensitivity of 88.6% with very low effective material (EML) loss of 0.0222 cm-1 and negligible confinement loss of 3.63 χ 10-11 cm-1 at an operating frequency of 1.9 THz. Another important advantage of the proposed fiber is that it shows nearly flat characteristics of relative sensitivity and EML in a broad frequency of 1-4 THz. The design of the sensor is extremely simple in that it facilitates the fabrication possibilities. The proposed PCF based sensor can be used for the alcohol detection in beverages as well as low loss transmission of terahertz waves in a bandwidth of 3 THz.