Bulletlike light pulses in photonic crystals

Abstract

We report the bulletlike propagation of light pulse in a particularly designed two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal. Unlike traditional light bullet supported by nonlinear materials, this bulletlike propagation is achieved only by 2D photonic crystal, where the diffraction and the group velocity dispersion of a light pulse are eliminated naturally by combining two distinct properties of photonic crystal, i.e., self-collimation and zero group velocity dispersion. Moreover, we studied the influence of third order dispersion on the propagation of light bullet and found that it can be greatly suppressed by an improved structure of photonic crystal.