Photonic crystal fibre for blood components sensing

A photonic crystal fibre (PCF)-based sensor has been proposed and thoroughly investigated for the identification of blood components, including red blood cells, haemoglobin, white blood cells, plasma, and water. To evaluate the sensor's sensing and propagation properties, a numerical analysis was performed using the COMSOL Multiphysics software. The proposed sensor design features an octagonal core and two layers of cladding with octagonal and circular air holes. At the optimal wavelength of 7.0 μm, the extensive simulation results confirms that the proposed sensor achieves high relative sensitivity of 99.89%, 99.13%, 97.95%, 97.77%, and 96.68% for red blood cells, haemoglobin, white blood cells, plasma, and water, respectively. Furthermore, the design demonstrates favourable confinement loss, propagation constant, V-parameter, spot size, and beam divergence. Therefore, the proposed PCF-based sensor holds great promise not only for medical sensing applications but also for optical communications. Its advanced design and highly sensitive capabilities make it a valuable tool for a wide range of potential applications in the biomedical and telecommunications fields.