Tuning the flow of light in semiconductor-based photonic crystals by magnetic fields

Abstract

Tuning the flow of light by external fields is a challenging task for scientific studies and optical applications, but it is important in many applications such as switches, modulators, and slow wave structures. Here, new results are presented which demonstrate that this effectively can be achieved by external magnetic fields in one-dimensional photonic crystals made from semiconducting material. The advantage of using semiconducting material is the magnetic-field dependent dielectric function of the free charge carriers particularly where the magnetic field causes large and strongly varying contributions – near the plasma frequency and the cyclotron resonance frequency. The results of simulations on the basis of a multiple scattering method at infrared and microwave frequencies and of experiments on Indium Antimonide in the latter frequency regime confirm the tunability up to the extreme case from full transparency to opaqueness and vice versa.