The present work, theoretically examined the poliovirus sensor model composed of one-dimensional photonic crystal with defect. The transfer matrix method with the help of MATLAB software has been used to detect poliovirus present in the water sample. The main objective of the present work is to design an efficient sensor by identifying the minute variation in the refractive index of water sample due to change in the poliovirus concentration present in the sample. The alternate layers of aluminum nitride and gallium nitride has been taken to realize Bragg reflector having defect layer of air at center of the Bragg reflector. The effect of change in thickness of defect layer region, period number and incident angle corresponding to transverse electric wave has been examined to optimize the structure which correspond maximum performance of the proposed poliovirus sensing structure. The maximum performance of the structure has been obtained with optimum value of defect layer thickness 1200 nm, period number 10 and incident angle 40°. Under optimum condition maximum sensitivity of 1189.65517 nm/RIU has been obtained when the structure is loaded with waters sample of poliovirus concentrationC= 0.005 g/ml whereas figure of merit, quality factor, signal to noise ratio, dynamic range, limit of detection and resolution values become 2618.28446 per RIU, 3102.06475, 2.27791, 2090.99500, 1.91E−05 and 0.24656 respectively.