Resonance-Induced Effects in Photonic Crystals

For the case of a simple face-centered-cubic photonic crystal of homogeneous dielectric spheres, we examine to what extent single-sphere Mie resonance frequencies are related to band gaps and whether the width of a gap can be enlarged due to nearby resonances. Contrary to some suggestions, no spectacular effects may be expected. When the dielectric constant of the spheres $\epsilon_s$ is greater than the dielectric constant $\epsilon_b$ of the background medium, then for any filling fraction $f$ there exists a critical $\epsilon_c$ above which the lowest lying Mie resonance frequency falls inside the lowest stop gap in the (111) crystal direction, close to its midgap frequency. If $\epsilon_s <\epsilon_b$, the correspondence between Mie resonances and both the (111) stop gap and a full gap does not follow such a regular pattern. If the Mie resonance frequency is close to a gap edge, one can observe a resonance-induced widening of a relative gap width by $\approx 5$.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figs., RevTex. For more info look at http://www.amolf.nl/external/wwwlab/atoms/theory/index.htm

Band structure of absorptive two-dimensional photonic crystals

The band structure for an absorptive two-dimensional photonic crystal made from cylinders consisting of a Drude material is calculated. Absorption causes the spectrum to become complex and form islands in the negative complex half-plane. The boundaries of these islands are not always formed by the eigenvalues calculated for Bloch vectors on the characteristic path, and we find a hole in the spectrum. For realistic parameter values, the real part of the spectrum is hardly influenced by absorption, typically less than 0.25%. The employed method uses a Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker procedure together with analytical continuation. This results in an efficient approach that allows these band-structure calculations to be done on a Pentium III personal computer