Simultaneous guidance of electromagnetic and elastic waves via glide symmetry phoxonic crystal waveguides

Abstract

A phoxonic crystal waveguide with the glide symmetry is designed, in which both electromagnetic and elastic waves can propagate along the glide plane at the same time. Due to the glide symmetry, the bands of the phoxonic crystal super-cell degenerate in pairs at the boundary of the Brillouin zone. This is the so-called band-sticking effect and it causes the appearance of gapless guided-modes. By adjusting the magnitude of the glide dislocation the edge bandgaps, the bandgap of the guided-modes at the boundary of the Brillouin zone, can be further adjusted. The photonic and phononic guided-modes can then possess only one mode for a certain frequency with relatively low group velocities, achieving single-mode guided-bands with relatively flat dispersion relationship. In addition, there exists acousto–optic interaction in the cavity constructed by the glide plane. The proposed waveguide has potential applications in the design of novel optomechanical devices.