Study on optical switching effect of photonic crystals with negative effective index of refraction

Based on transmission spectra, optical switching effect of equivalent negative refractive photonic crystals (PCs) composed of a triangular array of air cylinders in a GaAs matrix is studied by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method in this paper. The mechanism of wave resonance is probed and the propagation of optical waves in the PCs is described in terms of effective refraction index and Bloch waves. Our numerical results show that the probability of spontaneous radiation would be enhanced extremely under the influence of Bloch resonance waves, stimulated emission and photon tunnel effect, resulting in the optical waves being localized greatly in the PCs at particular frequencies. In addition, we found that the position of transmission peaks, with values much greater than unit, can be controlled by tuning the central frequency of the waveguide source. It means that photon current in the PCs can also be controlled to optimize transmission properties of PCs, so as to meet the requirements of novel optical devices based on PCs, such as all-optical switches. (C) 2008 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.