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Title: Effective bichromatic potential for ultra-high Q-factor photonic crystal slab cavities

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4938395· OSTI ID:22486298
; ;  [1]
  1. Department of Physics and CNISM, University of Pavia, Via Bassi 6, 27100 Pavia (Italy)

We introduce a confinement mechanism in photonic crystal slab cavities, which relies on the superposition of two incommensurate one-dimensional lattices in a line-defect waveguide. It is shown that the resulting photonic profile realizes an effective quasi-periodic bichromatic potential for the electromagnetic field confinement yielding extremely high quality (Q) factor nanocavities, while simultaneously keeping the mode volume close to the diffraction limit. We apply these concepts to pillar- and hole-based photonic crystal slab cavities, respectively, and a Q-factor improvement by over an order of magnitude is shown over existing designs, especially in pillar-based structures. Thanks to the generality and easy adaptation of such confinement mechanism to a broad class of cavity designs and photonic lattices, this work opens interesting routes for applications where enhanced light–matter interaction in photonic crystal structures is required.

OSTI ID:
22486298
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 26; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English