Novel Functionalities with Photonic Nanostructures
The motivation for research on photonic nanostructures is twofold. One is to attempt the miniaturization of standard optical devices and the other is to explore novel functionalities, otherwise unknown in bulk optical media. This article describes the wor
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Novel Functionalities with Photonic Nanostructures R. Vijaya
Abstract
The motivation for research on photonic nanostructures is twofold. One is to attempt the miniaturization of standard optical devices and the other is to explore novel functionalities, otherwise unknown in bulk optical media. This article describes the work carried out using very inexpensive fabrication methods on the development of a few active and passive devices based on 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D photonic crystals, all with feature sizes below 300 nm. Keywords
Photonic crystals coatings
1
Self-assembly
Introduction
Modern research on Photonic Crystals began nearly 30 years ago with two seminal works published independently by Yablonovitch and John [1, 2]. Photonic crystals are periodic structures usually made of dielectrics with their lattice constants comparable to the wavelength of intended application. Thus they have been targeted mostly for applications in the visible range, in view of fabrication difficulties for sizes less than a few hundred nanometers. The insistence on top-down approach using electron-beam lithography for the fabrication of photonic crystals in 1990s has now reduced and has led to the acceptance of the inexpensive bottom-up method of self-assembly, due to its versatility for single-step large-area fabrication. The traditional approach of avoiding lossy metals in optical devices has also changed over the years and photonic crystals with metal nanoparticle inclusions are sought after due to the novel plasmonic effects possible with them. Absorption is no longer considered as a drawback for photonic crystals. Indeed, the study of gain characteristics of photonic crystals is an extremely important area for R. Vijaya (&) Department of Physics and Centre for Lasers and Photonics, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, 208016, India e-mail: [email protected]
Nanocavity
Lasing
Heterostructure
Antireflection
applications. Another effect that has received attention is the ease with which slow light can be studied in photonic crystals. Where earlier understanding had dictated that working close to a resonance was essential for slow light, photonic crystals provide a rich playground with dispersion surfaces that can be tailored for the study of slow light without ever being close to a material resonance [3]. The presence of exotic dispersion surfaces have also led to the study of negative refraction [4] and diffraction-less self-collimation [5]. The range of applications envisaged for photonic crystals has been stupendous, to say the least, to the researchers in the area of optical sciences. Our group has worked on several topics in connection with the photonic crystals during the period of 2004–2016. Since only a handful of nanofabrication facilities were available in India at that time, we began with the fabrication of photonic crystals using low-cost self-assembling techniques and found that they indeed showed superior stop band characteristics [6]. Three-dimensionally ordered photonic crystals grown f
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