Photonic crystal heterostructures and interfaces

Photonic crystal heterostructures, like their semiconductor quantum electronic counterparts, generate complex function from simple, well-understood building blocks. They have led to compact photonic crystal-based waveguides and record-quality-factor resonant cavities. Here the progress on the experimental realization of photonic crystal heterostructure devices, and on the development of convenient, intuitive, and computationally efficient models of devices that unite multiple finite-sized photonic crystal media to engineer photon localization and guidance is summarized.

Figure 1

An example of a heterostructure using colloidal crystals.

Figure 2

A photonic crystal fabricated using the autocloning technique. Reprinted with permission from 123. Copyright 2002, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Figure 3

A photonic crystal heterostructure waveguide fabricated using autocloned photonic crystals. The dashed lines represent the positions of the junctions. Both horizontal and vertical junctions are shown. Reprinted with permission from 73. Copyright 2003, IEEE.

Figure 4

A photonic crystal heterostructure fabricated lithographically in a semiconductor slab. The arrow shows the position of the junction. Reprinted with permission from 130. Copyright 2004, American Institute of Physics.

Figure 5

Example of a resonant cavity realized using photonic crystal heterostructures. (a) Refractive index profile. (b) Band diagram. The dashed line represents the frequency of a resonant state.

Figure 6

A graded photonic crystal resonator. Reprinted with permission from 139. Copyright 2004, Optical Society of America.

Figure 7

Graphical illustration of mode matching: The triangular wave represents the field profile just inside the crystal. It has the periodicity of the lattice and must be matched to plane waves. The periodic profile is separated in a Fourier series, shown on the right. Each Fourier component corresponds to a superposition of plane waves in the homogeneous material shown at the bottom.

Figure 8

Magnitude and phase of the reflection coefficient from a semi-infinite photonic crystal. The inset shows the geometry considered.

Figure 9

The use of the envelope approximation and effective mass in semiconductor structures. (a) True atomic potential. (b) Heterostructure potential and effective mass.