Regensburg 2007 – wissenschaftliches Programm
Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Downloads | Hilfe
HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik
HL 22: Photonic crystals II
HL 22.4: Vortrag
Dienstag, 27. März 2007, 14:45–15:00, H13
Silicon-based photonic crystal waveguides — •Daniel Pergande1, Alexey Milenin2, Werner Sievers3, and Ralf Wehrspohn1 — 1Microstructure-based Materials Design Group, Institute of Physics, University of Halle-Wittenberg — 2Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Halle — 3Department of Physics, University Paderborn
In PhCs the photonic band structure (PhBS) replaces the dispersion relation of photons in a homogenous dielectric medium. The PhBS results from scattering and interference of light at periodically alternating domains of material with different dielectric constants.
Silicon is the dominating material in today's microelectronics, especially in modern telecommunications, and therefore a lot of experience in microstructuring of silicon exists. Its high dielectric constant makes it a promising candidate for PhC fabrication. Furthermore, the possibility of integrating electronics and optics on one chip is of great advantage for silicon-based PhC devices.
We present ridge waveguides and PhC waveguides etched in a high-index-contrast material made of a thin silicon slab embedded in two silica layers. Hence fully symmetrical structures can be realized and two important conditions for low-loss guiding of light in PhC waveguides can be matched: The symmetry avoids polarization mixing and the high index contrast leads to strong confinement of light, so the PhC waveguides allow theoretically lossless guiding of light because of operating completely below the lightcone. This opens the door for fully new applications.