Magneto-photonic crystal slab waveguides with lower-refractive-index-silica claddings

This letter proposes a new form of magneto-photonic crystal slab waveguides including nanoporous SiO2, with an extremely low refractive index, as the cladding material. These structures allow us to achieve physical strength and to render unnecessary holes extending to cladding layers. Our letter investigates the significance of the waveguide geometry for nonreciprocal phase shifts and losses, using a three-dimensional finite-element method with periodic boundary conditions. The guided modes exhibit small losses well below the light line and high nonreciprocal phase shifts with appropriate parameters, according to the calculations in this letter.