Effects of structural fluctuations on the photonic bandgap during fabrication of a photonic crystal

We study theoretically the effect of structural fluctuations on the photonic bandgap during fabrication of a photonic crystal. We consider irregularities such as misalignment of stripe position, deviation of intersecting angle, variation of layer thickness, and variation of stripe width. The results of our calculations show that misalignment of the stripes affects the width of the bandgap most. However, the photonic crystal is fairly robust to structural irregularities, so even with an irregularity of 15% the bandgap remains as large as 11%. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America [S0740-3224(99)01602-1].