Diminished normal reflectivity of one-dimensional photonic crystals due to dielectric interfacial roughness

Abstract

Dielectric reflectors that are periodic in one dimension, also known as one-dimensional photonic crystals (1DPCs), have become extremely useful tools in the optics industry due to the presence of wavelength-tunable photonic bandgaps. However, little is known about the practical effects of manufacturing defects, such as interfacial roughness, on this technologically useful property of 1DPCs. We employ a finite-difference time-domain code to gain further insight into the effect of interfacial roughness on the reflectivity of quarter-wave-tuned 1DPCs in the center of the bandgap at normal incidence. This provides an estimate of the magnitude of the effect of the roughness for even the most-robust incidence conditions.

Structural, electrical, and optical properties of thermally evaporated nanocrystalline PbTe films

“…The microstructural and morphological similarity between PbTe films deposited on different substrates is not coincidental and is indicative of the polycrystalline nature of PbTe films. From a device integration perspective, this roughness value has a negligible effect on the performance of photonic crystal cavities operating in mid-IR wavelengths according to Maskaly et al 14,15…”

Influence of Fluctuations of the Geometrical Parameters on the Photonic Band Gaps in One-Dimensional Photonic Crystals

“…Technological deficiencies resulting in side-wall roughness in 1D PCs were investigated in Refs. [6][7][8][9][10], whereas in Refs. [6,8,11,12], non-uniformities in wall thickness were analysed.…”

Photonic crystal sensors: An overview

“…They are called one-dimensional (1D), two-dimensional (2D), and three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystals, respectively. 1D photonic crystals, or the so-called multilayer structures, are well studied and reported in the literature [9][10][11][12][13][14]. They consist of alternating layers of two materials with different refractive indices resulting in a periodically varying refractive index in one direction but homogeneous in the other two directions.…”