Abstract

Two-dimensional photonic crystals drew attentions of researchers because of their manufacturability.. One noticeable advantage of the 2-D photonic crystal is its forgiveness against imperfect fabrication. For example, the each holes of the lattice do not have to be extremely uniform. Even with some irregularities in size and shape, the major properties of the photonic band gap remain almost unchanged except the region near the band edge [1]. The electromagnetic waves interact with a periodic structure over a long range, thereby some kind of natural averaging takes place in the photonic crystal. Experimentally, in 1999, the single defect two-dimensional photonic crystal laser was demonstrated from the triangular lattice air-slab photonic crystal [2]. This demonstration drew attention of the scientists working on photonic crystals and semiconductor lasers because it proved the manufacturability of photonic crystal devices functioning at communication wavelength of 1550 nm. In this example of the 2-D slab triangular photonic crystal, TE-polarized photons are confined by the TE photonic band gap in the plane of the slab and by the total internal reflection in vertical direction.

© 2002 Optical Society of America