Abstract

Photonic crystals (PhCs), with their wide range of applications including non-classical light generation, all-optical computational paradigms, solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments, and sensing, are bound to play a major role in future photonic devices. The most important building block for all applications is the optical cavity. Here, we show how some common slab-based PhC cavities can be greatly improved with no added difficulty in the fabrication process. We achieve this by combining a fast mode-expansion method for the simulation of a structure [1] with a genetic optimization algorithm, which allows us to explore the full parameter space spanned by a number of experimentally accessible structural parameters [2].

© 2015 IEEE