10 dB emission suppression in a structured low index medium

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a quasiperiodic 3D structured medium can achieve approximately -10 dB emission suppression even with low refractive index contrasts as low as 1.30, expanding possibilities for low-index materials.

Contribution

It introduces a novel quasiperiodic 3D structure design that enables significant emission suppression at low refractive indices, surpassing previous limitations of 1.9 index contrast.

Findings

Achieves -10 dB emission suppression at index contrast of 1.30

Suppression limit is nearly independent of refractive index contrast

Optimal number of gratings maximizes emission suppression

Abstract

Significant suppression of radiation in 3D structured media with small refractive index 1.4-1.6, such as of glass or polymers, is a desirable feature yet to be obtained. For periodical structures this is realised at frequencies of the complete photonic band gap (CPBG), which up to now was demonstrated to open for materials with refractive index of at least 1.9. We present here a quasiperiodic 3D structure consisting of multiple overlapping gratings with a homogeneous distribution of Bragg peaks on a sphere in reciprocal space, which allows efficient suppression of emission. Recently we have presented the theoretical model, considering interaction with the neighbouring gratings only, that estimates a finite CPBG for arbitrarily small refractive indices and thus complete emission suppression in infinite structures. However, numerical simulations demonstrate a finite leakage of power from emitter not predicted by the model. Still the simulations show -10 dB suppression in 3D structures with optimised number of gratings. Astonishingly, as we show here, this limit is almost independent of the refractive index contrast. Also, the structures with a defined number of gratings show maximal suppression at certain refractive indices, losing the suppression even at higher refractive indices. The -10 dB suppression is demonstrated for refractive index contrast as low as 1.30.