Photonic Crystal - Introduction

Introduction

Photonic crystals are composed of periodic dielectric or metallo-dielectric nanostructures that affect the propagation of electromagnetic waves (EM) in the same way as the periodic potential in a semiconductor crystal affects the electron motion by defining allowed and forbidden electronic energy bands. Essentially, photonic crystals contain regularly repeating internal regions of high and low dielectric constant. Photons (behaving as waves) propagate through this structure - or not - depending on their wavelength. Wavelengths of light that are allowed to travel are known as modes, and groups of allowed modes form bands. Disallowed bands of wavelengths are called photonic band gaps. This gives rise to distinct optical phenomena such as inhibition of spontaneous emission, high-reflecting omni-directional mirrors and low-loss-waveguiding, amongst others.

Since the basic physical phenomenon is based on diffraction, the periodicity of the photonic crystal structure has to be of the same length-scale as half the wavelength of the EM waves i.e. ~200 nm (blue) to 350 nm (red) for photonic crystals operating in the visible part of the spectrum - the repeating regions of high and low dielectric constants have to be of this dimension. This makes the fabrication of optical photonic crystals cumbersome and complex.