An Introduction To Photonic Crystals

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Photonic Crystals

Motivation

In the last few decades, a new frontier has opened up due to tremendous advancement of semiconductor technology which have brought incredible changes to our society and the life of people. The aim has become to control the optical properties of materials. A massive range of technological developments become possible by engineering of such materials that respond to light waves over a desired range of frequencies. They can perfectly reflect the light waves, or allow them to propagate only in certain directions, or can also confine them within a specified volume [1]. The introduction of components such as optical fibers or integrated ridge waveguides which were based on principle of total internal reflection for light guidance, such as, has bought revolutionary changes in the telecommunication and optical industry. Apart from that another way of controlling light based on Bragg diffraction has already been used in many devices like dielectric mirrors. The principle of dielectric mirrors based on one-dimensional (1D) light reflection was generalized to two and three dimensions in 1987 [2, 3] which leaded to a new class of materials: photonic crystals. Photonic crystals arise from the cooperation of periodic scatterers, therefore they are called crystals because of their periodicity and photonic because they interact with light.

During the 21st century, there is a vision that photonic devices may take over the task of electronic devices. Through the use of amazingly analogous theoretical and fabrication approaches, photonic crystals assure to give us control over the flow of photons, and with their capability to interact with light on a wavelength scale they have the potential ...

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...width is obtained. To test the applicability of the proposed designs we calculated various parameters to analyse the buffering capacity of the proposed PC waveguide.

Chapter 2 gives a theoretical introduction to the properties of photonic crystals starting with Maxwell's equations. These equations are cast as a linear Hermitian eigenvalue problem, a form in which many useful properties become apparent. The photonic crystal properties are then described by the characteristic photonic band structure or dispersion diagram representing the eigensolutions of the eigenvalue problem for a periodic dielectric structure.

Chapter 3 presents brief survey of published research on photonic crystal waveguide.

Chapter 4 discussed the design and results of line defect photonic crystal waveguide structure by shifting the position of rows of holes adjacent to defect waveguide.