Experimental demonstration of self-collimation beaming and splitting in photonic crystals

TL;DR

This paper experimentally demonstrates self-collimation and splitting of microwave beams in 2D photonic crystals, confirming theoretical predictions and showcasing potential for integrated photonic devices.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental proof of a photonic crystal beam splitter based on self-collimation, validating prior theoretical work.

Findings

Successful experimental demonstration of beam self-collimation

Effective beam splitting in microwave photonic crystals

Validation of theoretical proposals for photonic crystal beam splitters

Abstract

I studied experimentally the beam self-collimation and splitting in two-dimensional microwave photonic crystals. Using a microwave photonic crystal fabricated from alumina rods, I present an experimental proof of principle for an earlier theoretical proposal [A. Matthews et al., Opt. Commun. 279, 313 (2007)] of a photonic crystal beam splitter based on the self-collimation effect.