OPTIMIZATION AND DESIGN OF 2D HONEYCOMB LATTICE PHOTONIC CRYSTAL MODULATED BY LIQUID CRYSTALS

Abstract

Photonic crystals (PCs) with infiltrating liquid crystals (LCs) have many potential applications because of their ability to continuously modulate the band-gaps. Using the plane-wave expansion method (PWM), we simulate the band-gap distribution of 2D honeycomb lattice PC with different pillar structures (circle, hexagonal and square pillar) and with different filling ratios, considering both when the LC is used as filling pillar material and semiconductors ( Si , Ge ) are used in the substrate, and when the semiconductors ( Si , Ge ) are pillar material and the LC is the substrate. Results show that unlike LC-based triangle lattice PC, optimized honeycomb lattice PC has the ability to generate absolute photonic band-gaps for fabricating optical switches. We provide optimization parameters for LC infiltrating honeycomb lattice PC structure based on simulation results and analysis.