Thermal emission properties of 2D and 3D silicon photonic crystals

We present measurements of the thermal emission properties of 2D and 3D silicon photonic crystals with and without substrate heated resistively as well as passively with an aluminium hotplate. The out-of-plane and in-plane emission properties were recorded and compared to numerical simulation. It turned out that for the in-plane 2D photonic crystal and out-of-plane 3D photonic crystal emission a photonic stop gap effect is visible. For the out-of-plane 2D photonic crystal emission, no photonic bandgap effect is observable but instead strong silicon oxide emission from native oxide inside the pores of silicon are observable. A model for the modified thermal emission is presented.     

Photonic crystal nanocavity laser in an optically very thick slab

A photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity formed in an optically very thick slab can support reasonably high-Q modes for lasing. Experimentally, we demonstrate room-temperature pulsed lasing operation from the PhC dipole mode emitting at 1324 nm, which is fabricated in an InGaAsP slab with thickness (T) of 606 nm. Numerical simulation reveals that when T≥800 nm, over 90% of the laser output power couples to the PhC slab modes, suggesting a new route toward an efficient in-plane laser for photonic integrated circuits.     

Focusing of light by negative refraction in a photonic crystal slab superlens on silicon-on-insulator substrate

We experimentally demonstrate the light focusing by negative refraction in a photonic crystal slab superlens at wavelengths lambda of 1.26-1.42 microm. The photonic crystal slab was fabricated on silicon-on-insulator substrate with an interface structure optimized for low reflection and diffraction losses. The light focusing in the photonic crystal slab was clearly observed through the intentional out-of-plane radiation or scattering of guided light in the slab. The minimum focused spot width was limited to 1.8 microm(1.4 lambda) owing to aberrations. The focusing characteristics were in good agreement with those obtained from photonic band and finite-difference time-domain analyses.     

Polarization properties of dipolelike defect modes in photonic crystal nanocavities

Far-field measurements of the in-plane polarization properties of spontaneous emission from optical nanocavities formed in two-dimensional photonic crystal slab waveguides are presented. A strong polarization signature, even subthreshold, is found for a pair of highly localized dipolelike resonant modes. This polarization signature is used to study the effects of symmetry lowering within the cavity.     

Slight disorder effects in two dimensional photonic crystal structures

In the actual manufacturing process of photonic crystal structure, unavoidable error can generate slight disorder which may influence the performance of photonic crystal based device. In this work, randomly distributional disorders are applied to the air holes in the photonic crystal structure. Based on this, we investigate the influence of the slight disorder on the photonic crystal band structure and the performance of photonic crystal based devices (waveguide and slab cavity). The studies indicate that the slight disorder provides small influence on the band structure of the photonic crystal. But, the random disorder in photonic crystal waveguide may increase transmission loss obviously when the wavelength of the light and the distribution of disorder break the balance of multiple interferences. Also, the slight disorder can reduce the Q factor of the photonic crystal cavity at a certain degree. The studies may provide some useful guides for further photonic crystal device research.     

Disorders influences on the focusing effect of all-dielectric photonic crystal slab superlens

The influences of structure disorders on the subwavelength focusing properties of an all-dielectric photonic crystal slab superlens are theoretically studied. The structure disorders are considered as randomly perturbing the position or diameter of air holes of the photonic crystal slab. The results show that the photonic crystal slab superlens can tolerate within 10% degree of positional disorder or 15% degree of diameter disorder without destroying the focusing function.     

Electromagnetic modes in semi-infinite photonic crystals

In a real photonic crystal, there exist three modes: propagation mode, evanescence mode and surface mode. Using ideal modal, semi-infinite photonic crystals, we study their effects on the transmission spectrum of photonic crystals, respectively. Because there exists only one air–crystal interface in a semi-infinite photonic crystal, no multiple reflection occurs and no evanescent modes and backward-propagating modes exist in this structure. The effects of the evanescence modes are studied by comparing the transmission spectrum of a finite-thickness photonic crystal slab and that of a semi-infinite photonic crystal. In addition, the effects of the backward-propagating modes are investigated using a coated semi-infinite photonic crystal structure. Finally, we study the effects of the surface modes, and find that the transmission spectrum of a semi-infinite photonic crystal is strongly dependent on its termination.     

Cavity modes in one-dimensional photonic crystal slabs

A theoretical study of cavity modes in one-dimensional photonic crystal slabs embedded in Silicon-on-Insulator structures is reported. Three different methods are employed, namely a guided-mode expansion in which the coupling to radiative modes is treated by perturbation theory, a grating or scattering-matrix method for calculating the surface reflectance, and a Fourier modal expansion for in-plane transmission calculations. It is shown that all methods lead to the same values for the quality factors of cavity modes for both first- and second-order Bragg mirrors. We conclude that the quality factor of a cavity mode can be determined with optical reflectance from the surface of the slab.     

Photonic band structure calculations for metal-clad two-dimensional photonic crystal slab

We study the effect of metallic cladding on the band structure of a two-dimensional photonic crystal slab. Band structures of a honeycomb patterned two-dimensional photonic crystal slab, with/without a metal-clad or a perfect conductor clad, are calculated using both the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and the plane wave expansion (PWE) method. We explain the changes of the band structure due to cladding. We also show that the band structure of a metal-clad photonic crystal can be obtained effectively from the odd modes of the air bridge type dielectric photonic crystal slab, thicker than the metal-clad photonic crystal by a factor larger than two.     

Dispersionless slow light by photonic crystal slab waveguide with innermost elliptical air holes

We report a low-loss photonic crystal slab waveguide formed by deforming the innermost circle air holes in the conventional photonic crystal slab waveguide into elliptical ones. We obtain the photonic bands and group index of guided modes in this photonic crystal waveguide by guided-mode expansion method and investigate the dependence of photonic bands and group index of guided modes on the parameters of the innermost elliptical air holes. The group velocity and group velocity dispersion of this waveguide strongly depend on the innermost elliptical air holes. Photonic crystal slab waveguide with the optimum innermost elliptical air holes possesses a wider single mode region below the light line, in which light can easily propagate without intrinsic loss. At the same time, the guided mode supported by this waveguide has nearly constant group velocity and vanishing group velocity dispersion in a 3-5 nm bandwidth.     

二维八重准晶有机光子晶体平板的光学传播特性

采用时域有限差分法研究了二维八重准晶有机光子晶体的光传输特性,重点分析了光束在聚苯乙烯空气柱平板结构和聚苯乙烯介质柱结构中的透射特性与光局域特性。研究结果表明,即使在低折射率对比度的情况下,两种完整八重准晶平板结构中均出现了可见光波段的光子带隙和本征模,且光子带隙中心位置随着平板厚度的增大而红移。当在两种准晶结构中引入缺陷微腔时,带隙内的缺陷模产生位置和波长红移特性随着微腔结构的变化规律明显不同,这种差异性是由两种物理机制(即光子晶体缺陷能级变化与微腔所支持的驻波条件)共同作用的结果。这一研究结果将为实验制备有机准晶发光器件提供一定的理论基础。     

Dynamics of spontaneous emission from SiN with two-dimensional photonic crystals

We investigated the dynamics of spontaneous emission from a photonic crystal etched into a SiN slab. After fitting the decay curves of the emission to double exponential functions, we divided the dynamic process of the spontaneous emission into a fast process and a slow process. It was observed that the presence of the photonic crystal increased the proportion of the fast decay component, and consequently, the emission rate and time-integrated emission intensity were also enhanced. These enhancements were a result of the coupling of the guide modes to the leaky modes of the photonic crystal slab waveguide.     

Numerical test of the theory of pseudo-diffusive transmission at the Dirac point of a photonic band structure

It has recently been predicted that a conical singularity (=Dirac point) in the band structure of a photonic crystal produces an unusual 1/L scaling of the photon flux transmitted through a slab of thickness L. This inverse-linear scaling is unusual, because it is characteristic of radiative transport via diffusion modes through a disordered medium - while here it appears for propagation of Bloch modes in an ideal crystal without any disorder. We present a quantitative numerical test of the predicted scaling, by calculating the scattering of transverse-electric (TE) modes by a two-dimensional triangular lattice of dielectric rods in air. We verify the 1/L scaling and show that the slope differs by less than 10% from the value predicted for maximal coupling of the Bloch modes in the photonic crystal to the plane waves in free space.     

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.     

偶极子位置及偏振对激发光子晶体H1微腔的影响

光子晶体微腔和量子点的集成是实现量子信息处理非常具有潜力的平台之一,利用微腔和量子点的耦合可以制备纠缠光子对,实现对量子态的操控.因为光子晶体微腔具有品质因子高、模场体积小等优点,可以极大地增强光与物质之间的相互作用,从而易于实现量子态在不同物理体系之间的转换.通过单量子点和光子晶体H1微腔的耦合可以产生纠缠光子对,因为H1微腔具有简并的、模式偏振正交的基态模式.通常微腔模式的激发随着量子点在微腔中的位置变化而改变,本文用时域有限差分方法研究了偶极子光源的位置及偏振对激发光子晶体H1微腔模式的影响.结果表明:通过改变偶极子光源位置可以选择性地激发H1微腔简并模式中的一个;具有某一偏振的偶极子光源只能激发相应偏振的微腔模式;模式激发强度的大小也是由偶极子光源在微腔中的位置决定的.鉴于目前量子点在微腔中的位置尚不能精确控制,所以微腔模式受激发光源位置的影响的研究具有重要意义.     

Theoretical study of light localization in photonic bandgaps of organic octagonal quasiperiodic photonic crystal slabs

Based on the polystyrene material of low refractive index, light localization in photonic bandgaps of two kinds of 2D octagonal quasiperiodic photonic crystal slabs are investigated in theory, including the air-rod polystyrene slab and polystyrene-rod slab. The properties of bandgaps and localized modes in both two defect-free patterns are analyzed in detail. When a single-point defect is introduced into two quasiperiodic structures, the position of emerging defect modes and the red-shifting of resonant modes in wavelength are observed quite differently when the defect microcavity is increased in size. This difference is caused by the competition of two physical mechanisms, which are the effect of defect energy levels caused by defects introduced into photonic crystals and the resonance of modes in the defect cavity. These results will provide theoretical support for experimental fabrication of organic light-emitting quasiperiodic photonic crystal devices.     

Observation of trapped light induced by Dwarf Dirac-cone in out-of-plane condition for photonic crystals

Existence of out-of-plane conical dispersion for a triangular photonic crystal lattice is reported. It is observed that conical dispersion is maintained for a number of out-of-plane wave vectors(k_z). We study a case where Dirac like linear dispersion exists but the photonic density of states is not vanishing, called Dwarf Dirac cone(DDC) which does not support localized modes. We demonstrate the trapping of such modes by introducing defects in the crystal. Interestingly, we find by k-point sampling as well as by tuning trapped frequency that such a conical dispersion has an inherent light confining property and it is governed by neither of the known wave confining mechanisms like total internal reflection, band gap guidance. Our study reveals that such a conical dispersion in a non-vanishing photonic density of states induces unexpected intense trapping of light compared with those at other points in the continuum. Such studies provoke fabrication of new devices with exciting properties and new functionalities.     

Disorder-induced losses in planar photonic crystals

The phenomenological approach introduced by Benisty [Appl. Phys. Lett. 76, 532 (2000)] to model out-of-plane radiation losses in planar photonic crystals with a low vertical refractive index contrast is extended to the case of in-plane disorder. The model is experimentally validated by means of optical measurements on GaAs-based structures. For the present fabrication techniques the disorder-induced contribution is found to be negligible compared with the other loss mechanisms.     

一种新型无色散慢光光子晶体薄板波导

利用椭圆形孔替代传统光子晶体薄板波导中邻接波导的最内层两排圆孔构成一种新型低损耗光子晶体薄板光波导.该波导的群速度和群速度色散特性强烈依赖于波导中这两排邻接波导的椭圆孔的特性.借助波导导模展开方法,计算得到波导的能带结构和群指数,并分析了它们与椭圆孔的参数关系.通过优化这些椭圆孔的参数,可以增加光子晶体光波导导模在光锥以下的无固有传输损耗带宽,在2—45 nm 的带宽上实现无色散的常数群速度.这些理论结果将为低损耗低色散慢光波导的设计制造提供理论基础. 关键词： 光子晶体薄板波导 群速度 群指数 群速度色散     

Self-collimating photonic crystal polarization beam splitter

We present theoretical and experimental results of a polarization splitter device that consists of a photonic crystal (PhC) slab, which exhibits a large reflection coefficient for TE and a high transmission coefficient for TM polarization. The slab is embedded in a PhC tile operating in the self-collimation mode. Embedding the polarization-discriminating slab in a PhC with identical lattice symmetry suppresses the in-plane diffraction losses at the PhC-non-PhC interface. The optimization of the PhC-non-PhC interface is thereby decoupled from the optimization of the polarizing function. Transmissions as high as 35% for TM- and 30% for TE-polarized light are reported.