Resonance tunneling through photonic quantum wells

The band gap in photonic materials with periodic spatial modulation of refr active index greater than unity can actually be regarded as a potential bar rier for photons. Similar to semiconductor quantum well systems due to the electronic band-gap mismatch, a photonic quantum well can be constructed by sandwiching a uniform medium between two photonic barriers. The transmissi on and reflection coefficients of light through the photonic quantum well a re calculated by a modal expansion method with an R-matrix propagation algo rithm. Resonance tunneling through the photonic quantum well structure is o bserved by varying either the well width or the frequency of incident light . Resonance peaks are found within the band-gap region, and indicate the ex istence of photon virtual states in the well. [S0163-1829(99)07815-7].