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.     

Enlargement of complete two-dimensional band gap by using photonic crystal heterostructure

A two-dimensional photonic crystal heterostructure, which consists of two photonic crystals of a square lattice of circular columns with reverse dielectric configurations, is proposed. Photonic band gap properties are calculated using a plane-wave method and the transmission spectra are obtained. After optimization, the relative width of the complete band gap reached 13.8% based on the simple unit-cell shape and crystal lattice. The photonic crystal heterostructure opens up new ways of engineering photonic band gap materials and designing photonic crystal devices.     

Photonic resonant transmission in the quantum-well structure of photonic crystals

A photonic quantum-well is constructed by sandwiching a uniform medium between two photonic barriers due to the photonic band gap mismatch, similar to electronic quantum well. The transmission coefficient is calculated by a plane-wave expansion method in combination with multiple-scattering techniques. The transmission peaks indicate that some photonic states exist in a quantized way, satisfying a quantized frequency relation. We also show that the finite photonic potential barrier plays different confined roles on the different photonic levels. The positions and number of the resonant peaks can be artificially tuned by varying the well width. By appropriately choosing the parameters of the well and barrier, a high-quality multichannel filtering can be achieved.     

The Sommerfeld precursor in photonic crystals

We calculate the Sommerfeld precursor that results after transmission of a generic electromagnetic plane wave pulse with transverse electric polarization, through a one-dimensional rectangular N-layer photonic crystal with two slabs per layer. The shape of this precursor equals the shape of the precursor that would result from transmission through a homogeneous medium. However, amplitude and period of the precursor are now influenced by the spatial average of the plasma frequency squared instead of the plasma frequency squared for the homogeneous case.     

Band-structure determination for finite 3-D photonic crystals

The partial band structure from a finite photonic crystal is determined using a model based on light diffraction and the transfer-matrix formalism. The predictions from such a model are compared to an experimental measurement of the bands in the LU direction of a face centered cubic colloidal crystal. Then, both the theoretical predictions and the experimental measurements are compared with the usual band-structure calculation based on a plane-wave expansion with perfectly periodic boundary conditions. As in measurements performed in the past, discrepancies between the predictions of this later model and the experimentally determined bands are observed. On the contrary, using the model presented based on light propagation through a finite crystal, where no periodicity is imposed in the direction perpendicular to any of the set of planes considered to determine a specific branch of the band structure, we found a very good agreement between the experimentally determined and the predicted bandwidths.     

Nonperturbative analysis of spontaneous emission in one dimensional special photonic crystals

The retarded spontaneous emission (SpE) process of a two-level atom embedded in realistic one dimensional photonic crystals (1DPC) is investigated with the quantum nonperturbative theory. The atomic transient decay is divided into two processes: the first comes from the natural decay to free space and the second is induced by the reflected field emitted from the atom itself. Due to the multi-reflection in the multi-layer structure, the correct delay time of the induced decay process is hard to calculate in the usual ways. However with the special but practical 1DPC provided, we give the analytic result of the atomic dynamic decay in 1DPC. Our result gives a clear picture to show the process which the atom feels the surrounding.     

Resonant modes in quantum well structure of photonic crystals with different lattice constants

The resonant modes in a quantum well (QW) structure composed of three slabs of two dimensional (2D) photonic crystals with different lattice constants are analyzed with plane-wave-based transfer matrix method (TMM). It is found that the energy band of the well slab submerged into the band gap of barrier slab is discretized into quantized modes and the number of the resonant modes changes with the well slab thickness. A model structure of asymmetrical photonic QW consisting of two slabs of 2D photonic crystals with different lattice constants and one uniform dielectric slab in between is proposed and the resonant modes in it are investigated with the same method. A useful numerical simulation method for theoretical discussion as well as for practical application about photonic QW structure of photonic crystals with different lattice constants is proposed.     

The effect of etching interfacial layers on the absolute photonic band gap in two-dimensional photonic crystals

The photonic band structures of two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystals with etched interfacial layers between air rods and the background dielectric is studied theoretically. The effect of etching interfacial layers on absolute photonic band gap (PBG) is analyzed quantitatively. Numerical calculations are carried out based on Maxwell's equations and the plane-wave expansion method. It is shown that the physical property of interfacial layers influence the absolute PBG, and the existence of interfacial layers cannot enlarge the largest absolute PBG of an ideal case without interfacial layers.     

Photonic band gap effect in one-dimensional plasma dielectric photonic crystals

Propagation of electromagnetic waves in one-dimensional plasma dielectric photonic crystals, the superlattice structure consisting of alternating plasma and dielectric materials, is studied theoretically using transfer matrix method. Numerical calculation is presented for plasma-air finite and infinite periodic structures. The results of photonic band gap characteristics are discussed in terms of plasma density, plasma width, and number of unit cells (N).     

Demonstration of a new transport regime of photon in two-dimensional photonic crystal

A new transport regime of photon in two-dimensional photonic crystal near the Dirac point has been demonstrated by exact numerical simulation. In this regime, the conductance of photon is inversely proportional to the thickness of sample, which can be described by Dirac equation very well. Both of bulk and surface disorders always reduce the transmission, which is in contrast to the previous theoretical prediction that they increase the conductance of electron at the Dirac point of graphene. However, regular tuning of interface structures can cause the improvement of photon conductance. Furthermore, large conductance fluctuations of photon have also been observed, which is similar to the case of electron in graphene.     

Efficient transmission in cascaded photonic crystal waveguides via a strong coupling effect

A design of cascaded photonic crystal waveguide is proposed in this paper inspired by the work of Tang et al. [D. Tang, L. Chen, W. Ding, Appl. Phys. Lett. 89 (2006) 131120]. In contrast to a conventional waveguide source, a plane wave source is applied in the current design. We show that an efficient guide mode in the photonic band gap can be achieved. The same idea also works for a slight variation by defects introduction in the photonic crystal. Finally, the strong coupling effect present in the cascaded waveguides is demonstrated by an analogy with photonic quantum wells.     

Large forbidden band in one-dimensional multi-layered structure containing exponentially graded materials

In the present communication, we have presented band spectra and reflectance properties of one-dimensional multi-layered structure containing dielectric exponentially graded and simple dielectric layers. This study has been performed theoretically by using transfer matrix method. In this paper we have taken the multi-layered structure where refractive index of odd layers is varying continuously along the direction perpendicular to the surface of the layer in exponential form. The effect of the graded profiles are studied and compared with the conventional multi-layered structure of suitable contrast of refractive indices in detail. In this study the materials are considered as non-magnetic and layers other than the graded are taken to be homogeneous and isotropic dielectric medium of constant refractive index. It has been found that the introduction of graded layers enhanced the forbidden band gaps and affects the reflectance of electromagnetic wave spectra significantly. By changing the grading profiles and the contrast, we obtained the forbidden band gaps and the reflectance of such structural change accordingly. Therefore, introducing a graded exponential layer of dielectric in the one-dimensional multi-layered structure provides possible mechanism for enhancing the reflectance as well as the forbidden gap in the optical region. Such multi-layered structure may be useful in the design of a broadband filter.     

Holographic design of hexagonal photonic crystals of irregular columns with large full band gap

The shape and size of the dielectric columns or particles (“atoms”) of photonic crystals (PhCs) formed by holographic lithography are determined by the isointensity surfaces of the interference field; consequently the PhCs’ photonic band gap (PBG) properties are closely related to their fabrication design. Here we have proposed a new structure of two-dimensional (2-D) hexagonal lattice with irregular columns, which can yield a 2-D complete relative band gap of 24.0% in case of the dielectric columns of ε = 13.6 in air, about 27% increase compared with that of the same lattice with regular triangular columns. This band gap size is among the largest for all the possible 2-D PhCs reported until now. The relationship between band gap properties of resultant structure and the specific fabrication conditions such as structure design and the choice of optimum intensity threshold and filling ratio are systematically discussed. The optical design for making this structure by two exposures is explained. This work may demonstrate the unique feature and advantages of photonic crystals made by holographic method and provide a guideline for their design and experimental fabrication.     

Applications of the expanded basis method to study the behavior of light in polaritonic photonic crystal slab with losses

We apply the expanded basis method (EBM) to investigate the behavior of light in polaritonic photonic crystal (PC) slabs with losses. The influence of losses on transmissivity is studied. It is found that the transmissivity is significantly lowered with the increase of losses, in particular, it is abruptly decreased in the vicinity of transverse-optical-phonon frequency. The electromagnetic (EM) dissipation is mainly dominated by the imaginary part of dielectric constant of PC. The larger the imaginary part of the dielectric constant, the more the EM energy depletion is. The variation of EM dissipation with the number of period layers in the PC slab is approximately linear or oscillatory increase with the number of period layers.     

Fiber-mesh photonic molecule

Analogous to the photonic crystal, we introduce the concept of a fiber-mesh photonic molecule made up of optical fibers and study its transmission characteristics. We consider a specific example of a photonic molecule, inspired by the well-known C₆₀ molecule, with the arms of the molecule formed out of single-moded optical fibers. The transmittance consists of sharp peaks determined by the pole structure of the scattering matrix in the complex energy plane. A molecule can be designed to control the positions and the widths of the transmission peaks, opening up the possibility of building new photonic devices such as high quality band-pass filters.     

Investigation of one-dimensional photonic crystals composed of dispersive materials

One-dimensional photonic crystals (1DPCs) composed of dispersive materials (including negative refractive index materials, negative μ materials, and negative ? materials) are proposed. The dependence of the band gaps on the angle of incidence and thickness scale are investigated by using the transfer matrix method. Simulation results show that the band gaps of these dispersive material 1DPC are insensitive to the thickness scale. The defect modes of these doped 1DPCs behave specially when the thickness of the defect layer, the angle of incidence and the thickness scale of PC change.     

TM-like and TE-like Modes Coupling in a Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Slab Composed of Truncated Cone Silicon Rods

We numerically investigate the coupling of TE-like modes and TM-like modes in a two-dimensional （2D） photonic crystal （PC） slab composed of truncated cone silicon rods. In such structures, the classification of TE-like modes and TM-like modes is generally impossible and the coupling occurs due to vertical structural asymmetries. The frequency and wavevector dependences of the mode coupling are discussed by investigating the photonic band structures, and the coupling efficiency is studied by examining the transmittance. The results show that the efficiency of mode conversion is strengthened by the vertical asymmetry and weakened by the clear sinall gap. These structures could be used as polarization conversion devices in integrated optics.     

Effective dielectric constant of two-dimensional photonic crystals in optical bands

By using the Fourier expansion method, we have developed an approach to calculate the effective dielectric index of a two-dimensional photonic crystal. The approach is very general: it can take into account various Bravais lattice structure as well as arbitrary spatial variation of the dielectric index. It has been found that near a nondegenerate frequency ω_n(Γ) at Γ point, the transverse magnetic (TM) mode is ordinary, as it is independent of the propagation direction, whereas in general the transverse electric (TE) mode depends on the propagation direction, it is extraordinary. Therefore, a two-dimensional photonic crystal can always be described by an effective dielectric index for TM mode near the nondegenerate frequency ω_n(Γ). However, the TE mode is much more complicated unless the lattice structure is highly symmetric. Moreover, a two-dimensional square photonic crystal has been identified as an effective birefringent crystal having two negative refractive indexes from the perspective of Snell's law.