Dispersive photonic crystals from the plane wave method

Abstract

Nowadays photonic crystals are widely used in many different applications. One of the most used methods to compute their band structure is the plane wave method (PWM). However, it can only be applied directly to non-dispersive media and be extended to systems with a few model dielectric functions. We explore an extension of the PWM to photonic crystals containing dispersive materials, that solves an eigenvalue equation for the Bloch wave vectors. First we compare our calculation with analytical results for one dimensional photonic crystals containing Si using experimental values of its optical parameters, and obtainig very well agreement, even for the spectrum region with strong absorption. Then, using the same method, we computed the band structure for a two dimensional photonic crystal without absorption, formed by an square array of MgO cylinders in air. The optical parameters for MgO were modeled with the Lorentz dielectric function. Finally, we studied an array of MgO cylinders in a metal, using Drude model without absorption, for the metal dielectric function. For this last case, we study the gap–midgap ratio as a function of the filling fraction for both the square and triangular lattice. The gap–midgap ratio is larger for the triangular lattice, with a maximum value of 10% for a filling fraction of 0.6. Our results show that the method can be applied to dispersive materials, and then to a wide range of applications where photonic crystals can be used.