A Fibonacci quasicrystal-based photonic spin Hall effect sensor for high-sensitivity pressure and refractive index sensing

Abstract

The photonic spin Hall effect (PSHE) is an effective metrological tool to characterize tiny variations in external pressure and refractive index (RI). This work theoretically presents a highly sensitive PSHE sensor based on the Fibonacci-sequence photonic quasicrystal (PQC) structure, featuring a symmetric Ag-dielectric configuration and an embedded detection cavity. By utilizing the photo-elastic effects and wavelength selectivity, this sensor achieves high-sensitivity detection of multi-scale and multiple physical quantities: external pressure detection of 0–3 GPa at 632.8 nm; wide-range RI monitoring from 1 to 1.42 under both visible (632.8 nm) and near-infrared (786.3 nm) illumination; and accurate discrimination between cancerous cells (including HeLa, Jurkat, PC12, MDA-MB-231, and MCF-7) and normal ones. Therefore, this proposed Fibonacci PQC sensor, characterized by a compact structure, integrated multi-sensing capability, and high sensitivity, demonstrates significant potential for applications in industrial manufacturing, environmental monitoring, and biomedical diagnostics.