Photonic Crystals and Photonic Integrated Circuits

Photonic crystals and photonic integrated circuits could pack in individual components a million times more densely than conventional ones. The tighter confinement and novel dispersion properties also open up many new applications, particularly for nonlinear (optical) devices and very low power devices in communication sector. The role of nanotechnology is fundamental to such exploitation, because quantum effects appear on small length and time-scales. Photonic nanocrystals are periodic dielectric or metallic structures having photonic bands in analogy to electronic bands of semiconductors. The presence of photonic band-gaps, where the propagation of photons of certain frequencies is prohibited, and the variety of photon dispersions give rise to novel and unusual optical phenomena. Examples of such photonic nano crystals include InGaAsP/InP 2D photonic crystals, 2D AlGaAs, silicon nitride/silicon-oxide etc.