Electrical modulation of silicon-based two-dimensional photonic bandgap structures

Electrically tunable photonic band gap (PBG) structures hold the potential to become a versatile and compact backbone for optical signal processing. In this letter we report electrical tuning of silicon-based two-dimensional PBG structures infiltrated with liquid crystals. An improved electrode configuration is used to avoid electric field screening by the conductive silicon walls. Electrical tuning using fields well below 1 V/mu m is demonstrated experimentally using both polarized light microscopy and reflectance PBG measurements. The structures can be operated with any electro-optic materials and lead to fast and efficient modulators, routers, and tunable filters. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.