Guiding mechanisms in dielectric-core photonic-crystal optical waveguides - art. no. 033308

We show that the main guiding mechanisms in dielectric-core photonic crysta l optical waveguides are total internal reflection and distributed Bragg re flection. We also show that by placing a slab of semiconductor material bet ween two photonic band gap (PBG) mirrors, we can obtain waveguide modes at frequencies out of the photonic bandgap. These modes are similar to the mod es of a conventional dielectric slab waveguide. Using these modes, we can o btain very good coupling between a PEG waveguide and a dielectric slab wave guide with similar slab properties.