Photonic band structure and related properties of photonic crystal waveguides in nonlinear optical polymers with metallic cladding

We examined the photonic band structure of a photonic crystal (PC) slab waveguide formed out of a nonlinear optical (NLO) polymer with metallic cladding by angle-dependent optical reflectivity and generated a theoretical photonic band structure by three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain calculations. The observed band dispersions determined from resonant features between the in-plane photonic band modes and incident light agree well with the theoretical band structure. We performed numerical simulations of the field distributions and decay rates of the observed photonic band modes in the waveguide and found that the observed modes are well confined in the patterned core when metal cladding is used, and have a longer lifetime than when a low refractive-index dielectric cladding is used. These results indicate that we can design artificial optical dispersions of band modes with strong waveguide confinement using this NLO polymer PC waveguide with metallic cladding.