Applications of Photonic Crystals in Communications Engineering and Optical Imaging

Photonic crystals are inhomogeneous dielectric media with periodic variation of the refractive index. A photonic crystal gives us new tools for the manipulation of photons and thus has received great interests in a variety of fields. Photonic crystals are expected to be used in novel optical devices such as thresholdless laser diodes, single-mode light emitting diodes, small waveguides with low-loss sharp bends, small prisms, and small integrated optical circuits. They can be operated in some aspects as left handed materials which are capable of focusing transmitted waves into a sub-wavelength spot due to negative refraction. The thesis is focused on the applications of photonic crystals in communications and optical imaging: • Photonic crystal structures for potential dispersion management in optical telecommunication systems • 2D non-uniform photonic crystal waveguides with a square lattice for wide-angle beam refocusing using negative refraction • 2D non-uniform photonic crystal slabs with triangular lattice for all-angle beam refocusing • Compact phase-shifted band-pass transmission filter based on photonic crystals