More than 10 years ago physicists gave a theoretic description of the so-called photonic crystal, an optic analog of a semiconductor. In contrast to a semiconductor, the photonic crystal is an artificial material, a composite. The dominant requirement for the photonic crystal is that electromagnetic waves of a certain length cannot propagate in it. It was also predicted that the photonic crysta...

Polymeric molds of the layer-by-layer photonic crystal can be economically synthesized with a microtransfer molding technique. The refractive indices of these molds are low, preventing formation of a photonic bandgap. We find that such molds can be conformally coated with higher-index material. Photonic band calculations find structures in which conformally coated layer-by-layer molds have comp...

This paper reports recent results from studies of atomic layer deposition for the infiltration of three-dimensional photonic crystals. Infiltration of ZnS:Mn and TiO2 are reported for SiO2-based opal templates. It has been demonstrated that high filling fractions can be achieved and that the infiltrated material can be of high crystalline quality as assessed by photoluminescence measurements. T...

In order to manufacture large-scale photonic devices of various dimensions at a low cost, a number of patterning techniques have been developed. Nanoimprint lithography is among the most promising given its unique advantages, such as high resolution, fast processing speed, high throughput, compatibility with diverse materials, and low cost. This review covers various aspects of nanoimprint lith...

Lasing is obtained from a two-dimensional (2D) Penrose photonic quasicrystal made of a low index contrast material of holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystals (H-PDLCs) that enables a substantial reduction in the optical pumping threshold. This lasing architecture further allows for excellent linear polarization characteristics as well as wide directional dependence. The pumping threshold ...

We propose and analyze a new photonic crystal cavity design that supports a dipole mode with a quality factor greater than 20,000. Such a high quality factor is obtained by precise tuning of the cavity length with minimal disruption of the surrounding photonic crystal. A fabrication procedure based on dry etching of InGaAsP material in HI/H2/Ar is used to demonstrate photonic crystal lasers wit...

We show that the main guiding mechanisms in dielectric-core photonic crystal optical waveguides are total internal reflection and distributed Bragg reflection. We also show that by placing a slab of semiconductor material between two photonic band gap ~PBG! mirrors, we can obtain waveguide modes at frequencies out of the photonic bandgap. These modes are similar to the modes of a conventional d...

An active, photonic band gap-based microcavity emitter in the near infrared is demonstrated. We present direct measurement of the spontaneous emission power and spectrum from a microcavity formed using a two-dimensional photonic band gap structure in a half wavelength thick slab waveguide. The appearance of cavity resonance peaks in the spectrum correspond to the photonic band gap energy. For d...

The photonic crystal is investigated as a substrate material for planar antennas in the microwave and millimeter-wave bands. Experimental results are presented for a bow-tie antenna on a (111)-oriented facecentered-cubic photonic-crystal substrate with a band gap between approximately 13 and 16 GHz. When driven at 13.2 GHz, the antenna radiates predominantly into the air rather than into the su...

We propose and design photonic crystal cavities (PCCs) in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) for diverse photonic and quantum applications. Two dimensional (2D) hBN flakes contain quantum emitters which are ultra-bright and photostable at room temperature. To achieve optimal coupling of these emitters to optical resonators, fabrication of cavities from hBN is therefore required to maximize the overl...