Experimental probe of a complete 3D photonic band gap

TL;DR

This paper presents an experimental method to directly identify a complete 3D photonic band gap in real crystals, avoiding reliance on theoretical models and enabling practical advancements in nanophotonics and quantum technologies.

Contribution

It introduces a model-free, experimental approach to detect 3D photonic band gaps using reflectivity spectra of inverse woodpile structures.

Findings

High reflectivity peaks indicating high-quality crystals

Stopband width correlates with predicted 3D band gap

Polarization analysis confirms the presence of a complete 3D band gap

Abstract

The identification of a complete three-dimensional (3D) photonic band gap in real crystals always employs theoretical or numerical models that invoke idealized crystal structures. Thus, this approach is prone to false positives (gap wrongly assigned) or false negatives (gap missed). Therefore, we propose a purely experimental probe of the 3D photonic band gap that pertains to many different classes of photonic materials. We study position and polarization-resolved reflectivity spectra of 3D inverse woodpile structures that consist of two perpendicular nanopore arrays etched in silicon. We observe intense reflectivity peaks $(R > 90\%)$ typical of high-quality crystals with broad stopbands. We track the stopband width versus pore radius, which agrees much better with the predicted 3D photonic band gap than with a directional stop gap on account of the large numerical aperture used. A parametric plot of s-polarized versus p-polarized stopband width agrees very well with the 3D band gap and is model-free. This practical probe provides fast feedback on the advanced nanofabrication needed for 3D photonic crystals and stimulates practical applications of band gaps in 3D silicon nanophotonics and photonic integrated circuits, photovoltaics, cavity QED, and quantum information processing.