Gap maps, diffraction losses, and exciton–polaritons in photonic crystal slabs

A theory of photonic crystal (PhC) slabs is described, which relies on an expansion in the basis of guided modes of an effective homogeneous waveguide and on treating the coupling to radiative modes and the resulting losses by perturbation theory. The following applications are discussed for the case of a high-index membrane: gap maps for photonic lattices in a waveguide; exciton–polariton states, when the PhC slab contains a quantum well with an excitonic resonance; propagation losses of line-defect modes in W1 waveguides, also in the presence of disorder; the quality factors of photonic nanocavities. In particular, we predict that disorder-induced losses below 0.2 dB/mm can be achieved in state-of-the-art samples by increasing the channel width of W1 waveguides.