PHOTONIC CRYSTALS – INTRODUCTION, APPLICATIONS AND THEORY Edited by Alessandro Massaro Photonic Crystals – Introduction, Applications and Theory Edited by Alessandro Massaro Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2012 InTech All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. As for readers, this license allows users to download, copy and build upon published chapters even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. Notice Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published chapters. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Vedran Greblo Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer InTech Design Team First published March, 2012 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from [email protected] Photonic Crystals – Introduction, Applications and Theory, Edited by Alessandro Massaro p. cm. ISBN 978-953-51-0431-5 Contents Preface IX Part 1 Introduction to Photonic Crystals 1 Chapter 1 How Nature Produces Blue Color 3 Priscilla Simonis and Serge Berthier Chapter 2 Basics of the Photonic Crystal Gratings 25 Andriy E. Serebryannikov Chapter 3 Resonant Guided Wave Networks 45 Eyal Feigenbaum, Stanley P. Burgos and Harry A. Atwater Part 2 Photonic Crystals and Applications 61 Chapter 4 Optical Logic Devices Based on Photonic Crystal 63 Kabilan Arunachalam and Susan Christina Xavier Chapter 5 MEMS Based Deep 1D Photonic Crystal 81 Maurine Malak and Tarik Bourouina Chapter 6 Photonic Crystal Waveguides and Bio-Sensors 113 Alessandro Massaro Chapter 7 EIT-Based Photonic Crystals and Photonic Logic Gate Design 133 Teh-Chau Liau, Jin-Jei Wu, Jian Qi Shen and Tzong-Jer Yang Part 3 Photonic Crystal Fiber 157 Chapter 8 Photonic Crystal Fibre Interferometer for Humidity Sensing 159 Jinesh Mathew, Yuliya Semenova and Gerald Farrell Chapter 9 Arc Fusion Splicing of Photonic Crystal Fibres 175 Krzysztof Borzycki and Kay Schuster VI Contents Chapter 10 Optical Solitons from a Photonic Crystal Fiber and Their Applications 201 Naoki Karasawa and Kazuhiro Tada Chapter 11 Long-Period Gratings Based on Photonics Crystal Fibers and Their Applications 225 Chun-Liu Zhao Chapter 12 Multi-Wavelength Photonic Crystal Fiber Laser 253 S. Shahi, M. R. A. Moghaddam and S. W. Harun Part 4 Design and Modeling 265 Chapter 13 Overview of Computational Methods for Photonic Crystals 267 Laurent Oyhenart and Valérie Vignéras Chapter 14 Coupled Mode Theory of Photonic Crystal Lasers 291 Marcin Koba and Pawel Szczepanski Chapter 15 Fourier Factorization in the Plane Wave Expansion Method in Modeling Photonic Crystals 319 Roman Antos and Martin Veis Preface Generally the term photonic crystal refers to two dimensional (2-D) and three dimensional (3-D) structures. Using 2-D and 3-D photonic crystals it is possible to control the propagation of light at arbitrary angles of incidence and not only the light normally incident as is the case for conventional optical films. Further, using photonic crystals, it is possible to achieve optical functionality not possible using conventional optical materials. This book provides a complete overview about photonic crystals including properties, applications, approaches and methods for the study. This book is structured into four main sections: 1. Introduction of Photonic Crystals. Many organisms have photonic crystals as part of their ‘bodies’. Recent research into the diversity of photonic crystals in nature has led us to question how such precise nanostructures form, with the hope that answers may lead to breakthroughs in their engineering. In a study of structural colors in nature, a remarkable convergence emerged in the nanoscale architecture of 2-D and 3-D periodic photonic crystals between species, families, phyla, and even kingdoms of organisms. Of the many types developed engineers, living organisms possess only four. These, however, occur in many unrelated species. It is possible that a combination of intra-cellular engineering and molecular self-assembly— as opposed to proportional genetic mutation—is the major factor in the evolution of photonic crystals in nature. In this section are reported examples of photonic crystals observed in nature and some examples of layouts such as gratings and guided waves. 2. Photonic crystals and applications. Applications such as optical logic devices, MEMS and bio-sensors are presented. Photonic crystals are promising technology in future optical signal processing and optical computing. In this direction optical logic gates are the fundamental components in optical digital information processing. In recent years, researchers have proposed other applications as photonic crystal MEMS based, and biosensors for bio-molecular detection systems (deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) chips detectors). The listed topics are discussed in this section. 3. Photonic crystal fiber: Photonic-crystal fiber (PCF) confine slight in hollow cores or with confinement characteristics not possible in conventional optical fiber. PCF are used for applications in fiber-optic communications, fiber lasers, nonlinear devices, X Preface high-power transmission, highly sensitive gas sensors, and other areas. More specific categories of PCF include photonic-bandgap fiber (PCFs that confine light by band gap effects), holey fiber (PCFs using air holes in their cross-sections), hole-assisted fiber (PCFs guiding light by a conventional higher-index core modified by the presence of air holes), and Bragg fiber (photonic-bandgap fiber formed by concentric rings of multilayer film). This section shows some important applications of the PCF. 4. Design and Modeling: Photonic crystals are described exactly by Maxwell's Equation systems. Much of our research, however, is directed at achieving a higher level of understanding of these systems, so that it is possible to predict and explain their behaviour. This section discusses an overview about computational methods for photonic crystals including coupled mode and plane wave expansion theory. Alessandro Massaro Italian Institute of Technology IIT Center for Bio-Molecular Nanotechnology, Lecce Italy