Confined optical modes in photonic molecules and crystals

Abstract

The optical modes in microresonators with a three dimensional confinement of light (photonic dots) have been studied spectroscopically, from which detailed information about their energies and field distributions has been obtained. Due to the confinment their optical mode spectrum is dominated by sharp resonances. Photonic molecules can be assembled by connecting together several photonic dots. The electromagnetic field distributions in structures formed from two photonic dots, for example, bear strong resemblences to the bonding and anti-bonding orbitals in diatomic molecules. By increasing the number of coupled resonators in a linear chain the transition from a quasi-atomic system to a photonic crystal has been obtained. The band stucture in these crystals has been studied as function of the geometry of the chains.