OPTICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF WAVE-GUIDE BASED PHOTONIC MICROSTRUCTURES

Third-order, one-dimensional, semiconductor-air gratings have been des igned, fabricated, and evaluated by optical waveguide transmission mea surements. Gratings with as little as six unit cells show a clear band edge around 840-850 nm. Owing to our approach of semiconductor-rich l attices with small airgaps, the diffractive spreading loss is sufficie ntly small (similar to 50% in the passband) for meaningful results to be extracted. The measurements indicate that the optical waveguide app roach is a good starting point for the study of photonic microstructur es and that practical device concepts can be implemented. (C) 1996 Ame rican Institute of Physics.