CALCULATED AND MEASURED TRANSMITTANCE OF METALLODIELECTRIC PHOTONIC CRYSTALS INCORPORATING FLAT METAL ELEMENTS

A three-dimensional metallodielectric photonic crystal (MDPC) that uti lizes planar metal scattering elements in a dielectric medium has been studied in the microwave regime, both experimentally and theoreticall y. The metal elements are circular copper patches defined on thin diel ectric sheets, which are alternately stacked with thicker polyethylene sheets to form a (111)-oriented face-centered-cubic lattice. A photon ic stop band has been measured from this ''flat-atom'' MDPC at 8.4 GHz with a rejection level of 18 dB per lattice period and a width of 50% of the center frequency. Calculations show excellent agreement with m easured stop band characteristics, including a similar angular depende nce and insensitivity to interplane registration.