Refractometric Sensing of Waterborne Pathogens by Photonic Crystal Fiber Sensor in THz Platform

An accurate detection approach is essential for identifying waterborne pathogens due to the high threat to human health. Considering the harmfulness of waterborne pathogens, a photonic crystal fiber sensor has been proposed and numerically evaluated the optical properties in the THz regime. Finite element method-based Comsol Multiphysics software has been utilized to design and analyze the PCF sensor. The proposed sensor renders superior performances for all the tested cases including a high sensitivity of 99.142% for vibrio cholera 99.324% for E. coli 99.35% for enterococcus faecalis and very low confinement loss of 1.3×10
^-16
dB/cm for vibrio cholera, 1.3×10
^-16
dB/cm for E. coli and 1.3×10
^-16
dB/cm for enterococcus faecalis at 4.8 THz operating frequency. Fabrication potential in the existing fabrication platform and a possible experimental setup for testing the sensor are also discussed in detail.