Two-dimensional terahertz photonic crystals fabricated by deep reactive ion etching in Si

Two-dimensional terahertz photonic crystals were manufactured from Si using deep reactive ion etching. Arrays of square holes with widths of 80 (100) mum and lattice constants of 100 (125) mum were etched through 500-mum-thick wafers with high resistivity. Stop bands with transmittance <1% and widths >200 GHz were observed near 1 THz for light with an electric field vector in the plane of the wafers (TE polarization). The observed stop bands are close to TE photonic band gaps predicted by a two-dimensional calculation. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.