Band gap characterization and slow light effects in periodic and quasiperiodic one dimensional photonic crystal

Abstract

Slow light offers many opportunities for photonic devices by increasing the effective interaction length of imposed refractive index changes. The slow wave effect in photonic crystals is based on their unique dispersive properties and thus entirely dielectric in nature. In this work we demonstrate an interesting opportunity to decrease drastically the group velocity of light in one-dimensional photonic crystals constructed form materials with large dielectric constant without dispersion). We use numerical analysis to study the photonic properties of periodic (Bragg mirror) and quasiperiodic one dimensional photonic crystals realized to engineer slow light effects. Various geometries of the photonic pattern have been characterized and their photonic band-gap structure analyzed. Indeed, one dimensional quasi periodic photonic multilayer structure based on Fibonacci, Thue-Morse, and Cantor sequences were studied. Quasiperiodic structures have a rich and highly fragmented reflectivity spectrum with many sharp resonant peaks that could be exploited in a microcavity system. A comparison of group velocity through periodic and quasiperiodic photonic crystals was discussed in the context of slow light propagation. The velocity control of pulses in materials is one of the promising applications of photonic crystals. The material systems used for the numerical analysis are TiO 2 /SiO 2 and Te/SiO 2 which have a refractive index contrast of approximately 1.59 and 3.17 respectively. The proposed structures were modelled using the Transfer Matrix Method.