Loss Reduction Mechanism for Coupled Cavity Waveguides in One-Dimensional Photonic Crystals

Abstract

This paper presents a loss reduction mechanism for coupled cavity waveguides (CCWs) relying on 1-D photonic crystals microcavities. The mechanism is based on structural modification in the vicinity of the cavity defects. With appropriate modifications, the tangential wavenumber components of the leaky guided modes, which can couple to cladding modes, can be decreased, resulting in the reduction of propagation losses due to diffraction. We numerically demonstrate the usefulness of this mechanism through the design of low loss CCWs. The diffraction losses in the CCWs, where air holes adjacent to the defects are changed in size, decrease dramatically compared with CCWs with air holes of constant size. This loss reduction mechanism can be applied even to the CCWs with an increased number of intercavity air holes, while the group velocity can be further decreased.