Density of Bloch states inside a one dimensional photonic crystal

Abstract

Abstract The density of Bloch modes inside a one dimensional photonic crystal (1D PC) is formulated based on its dispersion relations. This density function has applications in thermal emission inside a 1D PC, as well as controlling the dynamics of active materials embedded in them. After deriving the formulations, a practical 1D PC parameters in the visible range are used to calculate the density of transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes. Compared to the alternative methods such as using Dyadic Greens functions, this method is less complex and is exact. The method applies to any anisotropic medium for which the dispersion equations are available, analytically.