Dynamics of atomic decay in a special one dimensional photonic crystal

Recently, Liu et al. [Phys. Rev. B 74, 075314 (2006)] pointed out that the atomic instant decay rate in one dimensional photonic crystal (1DPC) showed a series of pulse-like peaks with time. In this paper, we continue their work, and adopt a special 1DPC, in which the refractive indexes of both constitution layers in a period are the same, to perform the analysis in detail. Our results show that the pulse-like peak of instant decay rate originates from the interaction between the atom and the sub-reservoir, the latter of which corresponds to the group of reflected fields having the same optical distance. The atom interacts with such a sub-reservoir mainly after the time needed for propagation. However, near the arrival time of the reflected field, the atomic level is broadened and couples to all frequency components of the sub-reservoir, and the pulse-like peak of instant decay rate appears. Although our conclusion is deduced with the special 1DPC, it is also valid for more general cases and might be useful to measure the quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effect, since the interval of repeated measurements may be expanded to several optical cycles in 1DPC, which will facilitate the observation of the quantum Zeno or anti-Zeno effect.     

Transport and photoinduced properties in highly Sr-deficient manganite films

We used the method of finite-difference time domain (FDTD) to study the characteristics of the patch antenna based on a novel periodic structure, and the theory of photonic crystal structure (also photonic band gap [PBG]) structure was introduced. The results obtained show that the surface waves propagating along the substrate surface can be suppressed by the periodic structure due to the influence of its forbidden band, and the energy of the electromagnetic waves is concentrated mainly in the substrate. As a result, the patch antenna based on the periodic structure has a wider bandwidth in comparison with the conventional patch antennae; and a higher gain is reached, so the patch antenna’s performance is improved. Due to such the advantages, the application of patch antennae can be extended in such fields as mobile communication, satellite communication, aviation, etc.     

Analysis of photonic band gaps in a two-dimensional photonic crystal with centrifugal core-shell rods

The absolute photonic band gap (PBG) in two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal with excentric core-shell rods is studied in this paper. The core rod shifts away from the core-shell rod center, and its position is decided by two new introduced parameters — the shift angle θ and the offset ρ. We use the FDTD algorithm to calculate the photonic bands of the photonic crystal, and analyze how the offset and shift angle affect the photonic bang gap of excentric core-shell photonic crystal for different core rod size. It has been shown that the variation of the photonic band gap is quite peculiar.     

Highly collimated emission from a left-handed photonic crystal with a quasi-cavity

We study the collimated emission characteristics from a dipole source inside a negative-effective-refractive-index photonic crystal with a quasi-cavity constructed by a concave photonic crystal reflector. The emissions along the ±X and −Y directions are forbidden by the quasi-cavity, so that most emissions propagate along the +Y direction. Simulation results show that a narrow collimated beam is achieved due to the near-zero negative effective refractive index. Moreover, the half-power beam width of such a collimated beam can be reduced to 3.48° by optimizing the size of the source area. Such a compact structure would have potential applications in micro-optical devices.     

Observation of enhanced beaming from photonic crystal waveguides

We report on the experimental observation of the beaming effect in photonic crystals using experimentally mapped spatial field distributions of energy emitted from a subwavelength photonic crystal waveguide into free-space, rendering with crisp clarity the diffractionless beaming of energy. Our experimental data agree well with our numerical studies of the beaming enhancement in photonic crystals with modulated surfaces. Without loss of generality, we study the beaming effect in a photonic crystal scaled to microwave frequencies and demonstrate the technological capacity to deliver long-range wavelength-scaled beaming of energy.     

Single laser exposure fabrication of diamond-like 3-dimensional photonic crystal microstructures using circularly polarized light

Phase tunable multi-level diffractive optical elements define an attractive approach for single laser exposure fabrication of 3-dimensional photonic crystal microstructures. The significant advantage of these multi-level diffractive optical elements over two-level diffractive optical elements is the flexibility of fabricating a wide range of 3-dimensional periodic structures by manipulating the relative phase of different diffracted beams. Here, phase tuning was applied to demonstrate fabrication of a hybrid 3-dimensional structure intermediate between previously reported diamond-like Woodpile-type structure of tetragonal symmetry and structure having body-centered-tetragonal lattice symmetry. Circularly polarized light was applied for the first time to balance the diffraction order efficiencies and improve the structural uniformity. Design guidelines are presented for generating diamond-like photonic crystal template that possesses complete photonic bandgap when inverted with high refractive index materials.     

Applications of the expanded basis method to study the behavior of light in a two-dimensional photonic crystal slab

We apply the expanded basis method (EBM) to investigate the behavior of light in a two-dimensional photonic crystal (PC) slab. This method is based on expanded completeness bases, including both the propagation and evanescence modes. We calculate the reflected and transmitted coefficients and the corresponding field distributions in the case of multiple mode transportation. We also show the related phases which exhibit oscillations with the frequency of the incident light.     

Angular tuning of defect modes spectrum in the one-dimensional photonic crystal with liquid-crystal layer

A one-dimensional ZrO₂/SiO₂ photonic crystal with a 4-n -pentyl-4' -cyanobiphenyl (5CB) nematic defect layer was used to investigate the transmission spectra of light polarized parallel and perpendicular to the liquid-crystal director at different angles of incidence. The spectra of the photonic crystal were shown to split into four polarized components T_ij at oblique incidence. When the incident angle increased, the bandgap edges and the defect modes shifted towards short wavelengths, while the amplitudes of the defect modes increased for the transverse magnetic polarization and decreased for the transverse electric polarization. The observed discrepancy between the defect mode amplitudes in the center and near the edges of the photonic bandgap was found to be related to the radiation losses inside the defect layer of a non-ideal photonic crystal. The simulated transmission spectra obtained using recurrence relations and taking into account the decay of defect modes are in good agreement with the experimental data.     

Modulation of photonic band structures with dielectric anisotropy

By the multiple scattering method and the extended Mie theory, we have calculated the photonic band structure of the photonic crystals consisting of the dielectric spheres with uniaxial/biaxial anisotropy. The results demonstrate that for fcc lattice structure there exist two partial photonic band gaps which does not appear in the isotropic case. Among them, the lower one, lying between the second and the third bands, exists in one third of the first Brillouin zone, while the upper one, opening between the fourth and fifth bands, can appear simultaneously in the rest two thirds of the first Brillouin zone. The effects of anisotropy on the band structures are studied as well, which suggests the biaxial anisotropy are much more flexible than the uniaxial anisotropy in modulating the band structures.     

Resonant modes and inter-well coupling in photonic quantum well with negative index materials

The transfer matrix method was used to study the resonant modes in photonic quantum well by stacking different photonic crystals consisting of positive index materials and negative index materials. The eigenfrequency equation for the resonant modes is derived. It is found that these resonant modes are omnidirectional, and the number of resonant modes is equal to the period number of photonic quantum wells. Moreover, the resonant modes become N-fold splitting in the N photonic quantum wells. The splitting intervals increase with the deceasing of photonic barrier thickness due to the coupling among the wells.     

Experiment study of tunneling phenomenon occurring in the photonic heterostructure containing single-negative metamaterials

In this paper, the tunneling phenomenon occurring in the photonic heterostructure consisting of single-negative (SNG) metamaterials is experimentally studied. First, the SNG metamaterials are fabricated using coplanar waveguide with lumped-element series capacitors and shunt inductors loading. Then, the tunneling phenomenon occurring in the photonic heterostructure containing SNG media is experimentally demonstrated. Moreover, the insensitivity of the tunneling frequency to the breakdown of periodicity of phonotic crystals was also illustrated.     

The directional emission sensitivity of photonic crystal waveguides to air hole removal

To obtain highly directional light output from photonic crystal waveguides (PCWs), the emission characteristics of the narrow-width waveguide structures are investigated by tailoring the geometry of the exit sides. The local structural deformations in the form of air hole removal from the triangular-lattice photonic crystal (PC) show the effectiveness of the previously proposed approach that was implemented by us for another type of PC. The spatial broadening of the beam is greatly suppressed. With the modified waveguide exits, highly directional emissions with small side lobes are achieved. The frequency dependency of the directional emissions is evaluated. We show that the divergence angles of the beams depend linearly on the wavelength for a regular type of PCW but the modified PCW exits have local minima with respect to wavelength in terms of the divergence angle. The present work may prove to be helpful in the design of couplers and edge-emitting lasers and in the implementation of free-space optical communications.     

The influence on atomic decay by inserting a LHM layer into an ordinary one dimensional multi-layer structure

Inserting left-handed material (LHM) layers into a one dimensional structure can influence the spontaneous emission (SpE) of a two-level atom. This has been investigated, starting from the simplest case of a three-layer system, where we find the reflected field (atom can “see”) passing through LHM layer is stronger than that through the corresponding normal layer. Indeed the induced decay is more strongly influenced by reflected field passing through LHM layer. Based on this and after further analysis of reflectivity, we find that, a quarter photonic crystal (PC) composed of alternately LHM and RHM can inhibit the atomic spontaneous emission more intensely compared to an ordinary PC.     

Fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) woodpile structure photonic crystal with layer by layer e-beam lithography

Photonic crystal based superprism offers a way to design new optical components for beam steering and DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) application. Three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystals are especially attractive as they could offer more control of the light beam. A FCT (Face-Centered-Tetragonal) woodpile structure has been fabricated using layer by layer stacking techniques with E-Beam lithography. Special planarizations and processes have been introduced to ensure the survivability and good alignment of the fabricated nanostructures. Scanning electron microscopy results proved the structure uniformity. With the proper design, the structure exhibits superprism effects around 1550 nm, and such effects have been observed in the experiments.     

Zero-averaged refractive-index gaps extension by using photonic heterostructures containing negative-index materials

We show theoretically that the frequency range of the zero-averaged refractive-index gap can be substantially extended in a photonic heterostructure containing negative-index materials. This photonic heterostructure consists of different one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystals. The constituent 1D photonic crystals have to be properly chosen in such a way that their zero-averaged refractive-index gap of the adjacent photonic crystals overlap each other.     

Fabrication of three-dimensional photonic crystal structures containing an active nonlinear optical chromophore

Direct laser writing by two-photon polymerization of photosensitive materials has emerged as a very promising technique for rapid and flexible fabrication of photonic crystals. In this work, a photosensitive silica sol-gel containing the nonlinear optical chromophore Disperse Red 1 is synthesized, and the two-photon polymerization technique is employed to fabricate three-dimensional photonic crystals with stop-gaps in the near-infrared. The composite material exhibits minimal shrinkage during photopolymerization, eliminating the need for shrinkage compensation or the fabrication of support structures.     

Z-scan analytical theories for characterizing multiphoton absorbers

The open-aperture Gaussian-beam Z-scan measurements for characterizing an optically thin multiphoton-absorbing material were systematically investigated. Two widely used temporal profiles of the laser pulses on Z-scan traces were considered as well. The analytical polynomial expressions of Z-scan traces were presented for a thin sample with only one nonlinear process at a time [two-, three-, four-, or five-photon absorption (2PA, 3PA, 4PA, or 5PA)] and concurrence of two different processes (e.g., 2PA and 3PA, 3PA and 4PA, or 4PA and 5PA), respectively. A simple yet highly efficient approach was presented for identifying and evaluating the simultaneous n- and (n+1)-photon absorption coefficients.     

Omnidirectional reflection and flat-top transmissionin Thue-Morse quasicrystal with single-negative materials

By means of transfer matrix method, we investigate the transmittance and reflectance of Thue-Morse (T-M) structure composed of negative-permittivity and negative-permeability materials. It is shown that the width and location of an omnidirectional reflectance band remain invariant with the change of generation order, and that the omnidirectional reflectance band is determined by both TE and TM polarization, which different completely from that in dielectric T-M structure. Moreover, a flat-top total transmission band occurs around the same frequency in which the general zero average permittivity and permeability are both satisfied in T-M structure. The basis for these phenomena are presented and discussed.     

Influence of a magnetically permeable surface layer on transient fields for a thin circular loop antenna

The transient fields, in the time-domain, of a thin circular loop antenna, on a two-layered earth’s model are reexamined when the usually neglected magnetic permeability contrast is considered. It is shown that for a two-layered earth model, where the upper layer is permeable, the transient fields are modified over the nonpermeable case. The fields in the time domain are obtained as the inverse Laplace transforms of derived full wave time-harmonic solution. These time-domain solutions are obtained as a summation of waveguide modes plus contributions from branch cuts in the complex plane of the longitudinal wave number. The results should be useful for interpreting airborne electromagnetic systems and in cases where super-paramagnetic mineral constant is present.     

Design of sharp transmission filters using band-edge resonances in one-dimensional photonic crystal hetero-structures

This paper presents a design of sharp transmission filters using band edge resonance effects in a hetero-structure composed of one-dimensional photonic crystals with different periods. Assuming that the photonic crystals are made of identical pairs of transparent materials, the band-edge resonance occurs when the periods are distributed in a geometrical progression with a common ratio, r=r _c , where r _c is a known function of refractive-index modulation, incident angle and the polarization of light. The band-edge resonance results in sharp resonant peaks in the transmission spectrum, with the full width at half maximum of the peaks increasing with an increase in the number of unit cells in each photonic crystal. Furthermore, if M photonic crystals are used to construct the hetero-structure, M−1 resonant peaks with the spacing between kth (1<k<M) and (k−1)th peaks equal to the band gap of the kth photonic crystal form in the transmission spectrum.