Advances in photonic crystals

Photonic crystals have seen major advances in the past few years in the opt ical range. Three-dimensional (3D) structures are now made by several self- organized growth methods. While full 3D photonic bandgaps are clearly obser ved, physical effects such as spontaneous emission control or lifetime chan ges are weak, due to the regular nature of self-organized structures. On th e other hand, the association of in-plane waveguiding and two-dimensional p hotonic crystals (PCs) in thin-slab or waveguide structures leads to good 3 D confinement with easy fabrication. They open many exciting opportunities in optoelectronic devices and integrated optics. We present experiments on a variety of structures and devices, as well as modelling tools, which show that 2D PCs etched through waveguides supported by substrates are a viable route to high-performance PC-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs).