Investigation of physical mechanisms in coupling photonic crystal waveguiding structures

Abstract

We explain the fundamental physical mechanisms involved in coupling triangular lattice photonic crystal waveguides to conventional dielectric slab waveguides. We show that the two waveguides can be efficiently coupled outside the mode gap frequencies. We especially focus on the coupling of the two structures within the mode gap frequencies and show for the first time that the diffraction from the main photonic crystal structure plays an important role on the reflection of power back into the slab waveguide. The practical importance of this effect and possible strategies to modify it are also discussed.