Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystals

Photonic crystal is a dimensionally periodic dielectric structure that exhibits a photonic band-gap (PBG). The theory of photonic crystal (PC) has been put forth for 30 years, and many achievements have been made based on theoretical and experimental research. PC materials inhibit photons from propagating for a certain band of frequencies with the fabricated PBG comparable to the wavelength of light, which have attracted more and more research interests due to its excellent properties and potential functional applications in optical, electrical, thermal and magnetic aspects. Furthermore, more and more efforts have been devoted to two-dimensional photonic crystals (2D PCs) due to their unique properties. In this paper, the characteristics of 2D PCs, including the preparation methods such as self-assembly, etching, and multiple-beam interference method, as well as its development status in waveguides, optical fibers, sensors, and terahertz technology in recent years are introduced. These developments show that the 2D PCs have great potentials as metamaterials. The future research focus and development direction of 2D PCs are prospected at last.