Two-dimensional plasma photonic crystals in dielectric barrier discharge

A series of two-dimensional plasma photonic crystals have been obtained by filaments' self-organization in atmospheric dielectric barrier discharge with two water electrodes, which undergo the transition from square to square superlattice and finally to the hexagon The spatio-temporal behaviors of the plasma photonic crystals in nanosecond scale have been studied by optical method, which show that the plasma photonic crystal is actually an integration of different transient sublattices The photonic band diagrams of the transverse electric (TE) mode and transverse magnetic mode for each sublattice of these plasma photonic crystals have been investigated theoretically A wide complete band gap is formed in the hexagonal plasma photonic crystal with the TE mode The changes of the band edge frequencies and the band gap widths in the evolvement of different structures are studied A kind of tunable plasma photonic crystal which can be controlled both in space and time is suggested (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics [doi 10 1063/1 3503625]