Coupling into slow-mode photonic crystal waveguides

Jean-Paul Hugonin (1) , Philippe Lalanne (1) , Thomas P. White (2) , Thomas F. Krauss (2)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Naphel
2 SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy [University of St Andrews]

We study efficient injectors for coupling light from z-invariant ridge waveguides into slow Bloch modes of single-row defect photonic crystal waveguides. Two-dimensional vectorial computations performed with a Bloch mode theory approach predict that very high efficiencies (>90%) can be achieved for injector lengths of only a few wavelengths in length, even for small group velocities in the range of c/100-c/400 . This result suggests that photonic crystal devices operating with slow waves can be interfaced with classical waveguides without sacrificing compactness.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Jean-Paul Hugonin, Philippe Lalanne, Thomas P. White, Thomas F. Krauss. Coupling into slow-mode photonic crystal waveguides. Optics Letters, 2007, 32 (18), pp.2638-2640. ⟨10.1364/OL.32.002638⟩. ⟨hal-00880160⟩