Photonic crystal molecules: tailoring the coupling strength and sign

S. Haddadi (1) , Philippe Hamel (1) , G. Beaudoin (1) , Isabelle Sagnes (1) , Christophe Sauvan (2) , Philippe Lalanne (3) , Juan Ariel Levenson (1) , Alejandro M. Yacomotti (1)

1 LPN - Laboratoire de photonique et de nanostructures
2 Laboratoire Charles Fabry / Naphel
3 lp2n-03,lp2n-13

We demonstrate a large tuning of the coupling strength in Photonic Crystal molecules without changing the inter-cavity distance. The key element for the design is the "photonic barrier engineering", where the "potential barrier" is formed by the air-holes in between the two cavities. This consists in changing the hole radius of the central row in the barrier. As a result we show, both numerically and experimentally, that the wavelength splitting in two evanescently-coupled Photonic Crystal L3 cavities (three holes missing in the ΓK direction of the underlying triangular lattice) can be continuously controlled up to 5× the initial value upon ∼ 30% of hole-size modification in the barrier. Moreover, the sign of the splitting can be reversed in such a way that the fundamental mode can be either the symmetric or the anti-symmetric one without altering neither the cavity geometry nor the inter-cavity distance. Coupling sign inversion is explained in the framework of a Fabry-Perot model with underlying propagating Bloch modes in coupled W1 waveguides.

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

S. Haddadi, Philippe Hamel, G. Beaudoin, Isabelle Sagnes, Christophe Sauvan, et al.. Photonic crystal molecules: tailoring the coupling strength and sign. Optics Express, 2014, 22 (10), pp.12359-12368. ⟨10.1364/OE.22.012359⟩. ⟨hal-00993238⟩