Investigation of Light Propagation Through Photonic Crystals For All Optical Devices And Components

Abstract

Quest for optical analogs of electronic components is continuing due to ever newlineincreasing data traffic. Photonic crystals (PCs), periodic arrangement of dielectric newlineconstant in different directions, seem to be suitable for this purpose due to their compact newlinesize and ability to control and manipulate the flow of light. newlineThis thesis presents a keen observations/investigations/understanding on newlinepropagation of light in two dimensional PCs (2D-PCs) and two dimensional photonic newlinecrystal waveguides (2D-PCWs). Investigations have been carried out using two newlinedimensional finite-difference time-domain (2D-FDTD) and Plane Wave Expansion newline(PWE) methods and based on the observations/investigations/understanding; (i) Proposes a versatile optical junction based on the phenomena of self-collimation newline(SC) and photonic band-gap (PBG) guidance. newline(ii) Proposes asymmetric light reflection and three-port asymmetric (three-port newlineordered-route) light transmission in linear, time-independent and non-magnetic newline2D-PC structure. newline(iii) Reveals switching behavior of nonlinear Mach-Zehnder interferometer (NMZI) newlinebased on PC structure and proposes all-optical AND and NOT gates. newlineThe organization of the thesis is as follows: newlineChapter 1 presents the motivation and background of the work in the thesis newlinefollowed by a brief account on PC structures and their guiding mechanism. newlineChapter 2 describes two numerical methods used to investigate the properties of newlinePCs which are (i) FDTD and (ii) PWE. newlineChapter 3 proposes a versatile optical junction based on SC and PBG. Dispersion newlineand transmission/reflection characteristics of the junction have been obtained. newlineThroughput/cross-talk of the proposed optical junction is compared with the earlier newlinepublished resonant cavity based optical junction.