Temperature effects on the confinement of light in a photonic crystal slab

Abstract

In this paper, we numerically investigated the temperature effects on photonic band structure and quality factor using the guided-mode expansion method in two-dimensional photonic crystal slabs. We considered that the slab is composed of silicon (Si) and that the two-dimensional photonic crystal is composed of air holes arranged in a hexagonal lattice. We report that by increasing the temperature, thermo-optical effects cause a short frequency shift of the photonic band structure for transverse-electric-like and transverse-magnetic-like modes. When removing an air hole in the hexagonal lattice, we report a confined degenerate mode within the TE-like photonic band gap, which exhibits a shift at lower frequencies with increase in temperature. Moreover, we identified a greater confinement mode in the cavity because of the increase in the quality factor with increase in temperature. We hope that this work will be taken into account for the development of new perspectives in the design of optical devices.