Opal photonic crystals infiltrated with chalcogenide glasses

Composite opal structures for nonlinear applications are obtained by infiltration with chalcogenide glasses As2S3 and AsSe by precipitation from solution. Analysis of spatially resolved optical spectra reveals that the glass aggregates into submillimeter areas inside the opal. These areas exhibit large shifts in the optical stop bands by up to 80 nm, and by comparison with modelling are shown to have uniform glass filling factors of opal pores up to 40%. Characterization of the domain structure of the opals prior to infiltration by large area angle-resolved spectroscopy is an important step in the analysis of the properties of the infiltrated regions. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.