Photonic and Phononic Crystals

Abstract

In this chapter the basic theory of the properties of photonic and phononic crystals are discussed [4, 11, 20–24]. Photonic and phononic crystals are, respectively, periodic arrays of different dielectric or acoustic media. Whereas atomic and molecular crystals [1, 2, 4] are commonly thought of as periodic arrays of atoms and molecules, photonic and phononic crystals are arrays of macroscopic or mesoscopic bits of materials which are periodically ordered on a macro- or mesoscopic scale. The scales of the periodicity are then quite different between these various systems.