Unidirectional transmission of funnel-shaped waveguide with complete bandgap

Abstract

It will be a future trend to apply quantum photonic technology to communication technology and information processing. One of major developing directions of quantum photonic technology is the miniaturization and on-chip integration. Like the diodes in integrated electric circuitry, optical unidirectional transmitter devices (UTDs) play an important role in processing the quantum information and also represent the main components of integrated optical devices. Thus, the design of UTDs has become one of the research hotspots. With photonic bandgap and localization characteristics, as well as easy micro-nano scaled integration, the photonic crystals (PCs) are often preferred when used to develop micro-nano integrated optical devices. At present, the common methods of achieving UTD with photonic crystals include directional bandgap mismatch, asymmetrical coupling by a micro-cavity, odd-even mode conversion, total reflection of photonic crystals with grating and photonic crystal heterostructure, etc. However, these optical unidirectional transmitters gained through the above methods generally have a low forward transmission, narrow working band, complex structure, etc. In the paper a novel method of UTD is put forward based on photonic crystal and a UTD of funnel-shaped waveguide is designed. The design of the device is divided into two parts: optimal funnel waveguide design and optimal point defect design. The band structure of TE polarized photonic crystal is calculated by R-soft. A triangular lattice circular air hole photonic crystal with complete photonic band gap is used as the initial structure and line defects are introduced to form a funnel-shaped waveguide structure (FSWS). The FSWS consists of the first waveguide W1, the second waveguide W2 and a funnel cavity. The funnel cavity is shaped like a funnel and located at the coupling between W1 and W2. Owing to the unique characteristics of the waveguide, the light wave transmission will be localized in the waveguide, which is conducive to improving the forward transmission. The influence of width variation of W2 with forward and backward incident light are analyzed by the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method, and W2 is selected as a waveguide formed by removing 11 rows of air holes. The FSWS achieves the initial asymmetric transmission, while the backward transmission remains high. Further studies are conducted to introduce four types of point defects to suppress the backward transmittance. The point defects refer to moving one or two air holes. In the work the FDTD is also used to calculate four kinds of point defect backward transmittance spectra and optimize the positions of point defects. Finally, it is found that when the optimal point defect mode is type I and <i>d</i> = 5<i>a</i>, the forward transmission (<i>T</i>_f) and transmission contrast (<i>C </i>) at 1550 nm are 0.716 and 0.929, respectively. Working bandwidth (<i>B</i>) can be increased up to 111 nm (1501–1612 nm). By mode analysis, it is found that the point defect introduces mode mismatch between W1 and W2, by converting the fundamental mode in W2 into high-order modes. Thus, the back-propagating light waves in W2 cannot effectively couple into W1, resulting in complete blockage of backward propagation. In addition, the structure is made of silicon based air hole photonic crystal. The 2D air-hole PC slab is mature and even compatible with conventional complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processing. The designed UTD is easy to implement, and has the advantages of simplicity and high unidirectional transmission characteristics. Therefore, it can provide a new solution for UTDs with higher requirements for integrated optical path at present.