Investigating anisotropic photonic band gaps in three-dimensional plasma photonic crystals with simple-cubic lattices doped by the uniaxial material

Abstract

In this paper, the properties of photonic band gaps (PBGs) for three-dimensional plasma photonic crystals (PPCs) composed of anisotropic dielectric (the uniaxial material) spheres in homogeneous unmagnetized plasma background with simple-cubic (sc) lattices are theoretically investigated by the plane wave expansion method. The equations for calculating the anisotropic PBGs in the first irreducible Brillouin zone are theoretically deduced. The influences of the ordinary-refractive index, extraordinary-refractive index, filling factor, and plasma frequency on the characteristics of anisotropic PBGs for the three-dimensional PPCs are studied in detail, respectively, and some corresponding physical explanations are also given. The numerical results show that the anisotropy can open partial band gaps in sc lattices and the complete PBGs can be found compared to the conventional three-dimensional PPCs doped by the isotropic material. It also is shown that the anisotropic PBGs can be manipulated by the ordinary-refractive index, extrordinary-refractive index, filling factor, and plasma frequency, respectively. Introducing the uniaxial material into three-dimensional plasma-dielectric photonic crystals can enlarge the PBGs and also provide a way to obtain the complete PBGs as the three-dimensional PPCs with high symmetry.