Design of a 3D photonic band gap cavity in a diamond-like inverse woodpile photonic crystal

TL;DR

This paper theoretically designs 3D photonic band gap cavities in inverse woodpile photonic crystals, demonstrating strong light confinement and localized modes suitable for integrated photonics in telecommunications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cavity design in inverse woodpile photonic crystals with small mode volume and detailed analysis of defect-induced localized modes.

Findings

Up to five isolated, dispersionless bands within the 3D photonic band gap.

Mode volume as small as 0.8 λ³, indicating strong light confinement.

Localized electric-field energy at the point defect, with potential for fabrication from silicon.

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the design of cavities in a three-dimensional (3D) inverse woodpile photonic crystal. This class of cubic diamond-like crystals has a very broad photonic band gap and consists of two perpendicular arrays of pores with a rectangular structure. The point defect that acts as a cavity is centred on the intersection of two intersecting perpendicular pores with a radius that differs from the ones in the bulk of the crystal. We have performed supercell bandstructure calculations with up to $5 \times 5 \times 5$ unit cells. We find that up to five isolated and dispersionless bands appear within the 3D photonic band gap. For each isolated band, the electric-field energy is localized in a volume centred on the point defect, hence the point defect acts as a 3D photonic band gap cavity. The mode volume of the cavities resonances is as small as 0.8 $\lambda^{3}$ (resonance wavelength cubed), indicating a strong confinement of the light. By varying the radius of the defect pores we found that only donor-like resonances appear for smaller defect radius, whereas no acceptor-like resonances appear for greater defect radius. From a 3D plot of the distribution of the electric-field energy density we conclude that peaks of energy found in sharp edges situated at the point defect, similar to how electrons collect at such features. This is different from what is observed for cavities in non-inverted woodpile structures. Since inverse woodpile crystals can be fabricated from silicon by CMOS-compatible means, we project that single cavities and even cavity arrays can be realized, for wavelength ranges compatible with telecommunication windows in the near infrared.