Performance of waveguide-based two-dimensional photonic-crystal mirrors studied with Fabry-Perot resonators

As a step toward the use of photonic crystals in optoelectronic devices, we present a thorough study of 2-D photonic-crystal mirrors etched into a GaA s/AlGaAs planar waveguide. Fabry-Perot resonators are fabricated to deduce the reflectivity, transmission, losses, as well as the penetration lengths of these mirrors. The guided photoluminescence of InAs quantum dots embedde d in GaAs is used to obtain the transmission spectra of those cavities, The varying thickness between the mirrors allows a scan across the whole bandg ap spectral range. Quality factors (up to 200) and peak transmissions (up t o 0.3) are measured showing that mirrors of four rows of holes have 88% ref lectivity, 6% transmission and 6% losses. Losses are also related to a two- dimensional transfer matrix method calculation including a recently introdu ced scheme to account for losses.