Planar photonic crystal resonant cavities

Abstract

Optically thin dielectric slabs, in which a fully etched through two-dimensional patterning is applied, can be used to form high-Q optical cavities with modal volumes approaching the theoretical limit of a cubic half-wavelength. A cavity design strategy based upon simple group theoretical techniques is presented in which emphasis is placed upon a momentum space description of the resonant modes. It is shown that photonic crystal laser cavities can be designed with a particular wavelength, polarization, and radiation pattern using these methods.