A side-coupled photonic crystal filter with sidelobe suppression

This paper presents the theoretical model and the optimization method to suppress the sidelobes of side-coupled photonic crystal filters. Numerical verification shows a good agreement between the theoretical method and the finite-difference time-domain simulation, but the theoretic method does not involve the time-consuming computation. The theoretical method also presents a better physical image for choosing the critical parameters, such as the quality factor, phase shift and the number of resonators. Based on the theoretical model, two optimization methods (chirp and cascading) are proposed to deeply suppress the sidelobes. They also show more flexibility in controlling the bandwidth and steepness of the roll-off in the filter.