General conditions of polarization-independent transmissions in one-dimensional magnetic photonic crystals

Abstract

Based on the transfer matrix theory, general conditions of polarization-independent transmissions in one-dimensional photonic crystals are derived. It is shown that the polarization-independent transmissions are obtained in photonic crystals consisting of two alternating layers with the same refraction index and optical thickness as well as the mutually reciprocal wave impedance. By using two different photonic crystals satisfying the above relation to constitute the light quantum-well structures, the structures have polarization-independent transmission properties. When a defective layer with wave impedance of 1 is introduced in the photonic crystals, the defective photonic crystals also have the polarization-independent transmission properties. In addition, polarization-independent low-pass spatial filters are achieved based on these photonic crystal structures.