PHOTONIC BAND-GAPS AND HOLOGRAPHY

Photonic band gap materials are holograms with extremely high refracti ve index contrasts, The refractive index function can be approximated by a small number of plane waves, as a consequence of the photonic cry stal periodicity. Photonic crystals can hence be constructed with a si mple holographic recording of a very small number of optical plane wav es, and appear in this regard as the simplest holograms. Various photo nic band gap structures are theoretically analysed and those concepts are illustrated experimentally with the fabrication of a two-dimension al triangular lattice in GaAs. The extension of the method to the thre e-dimensional diamond structure is discussed. (C) 1997 American Instit ute of Physics.