Photonic band gaps, defect characteristics, and waveguiding in two-dimensional disordered dielectric and metallic photonic crystals - art. no. 195113

We experimentally investigated the influence of positional disorder on the photonic band gap, defect characteristics, and waveguiding in two-dimension al dielectric and metallic photonic crystals. Transmission measurements per formed on the dielectric photonic crystals have shown a stop band even if a large amount of disorder was introduced to these structures, On the other hand, the photonic band gap of the metallic crystals was found to be very s ensitive to disorder, while the metallicity gap was not affected significan tly. We addressed how the transmission characteristics of a cavity were aff ected in the presence of weak disorder. Since the translational symmetry wa s broken by disorders, we measured different cavity frequencies when we,gen erated defects at various locations. We also demonstrated the propagation o f photons by hopping through coupled-cavity structures in both dielectric a nd metallic two-dimensional photonic crystals. Effects of weak disorder on guiding and bending of electromagnetic waves through the coupled-cavity wav eguides were also investigated.