Optical studies of photonic crystals and high index-contrast microphotonic circuits

Both high index-contrast (HIC) photonic crystals and HIC microphotonic circuits are presented in this thesis. Studies of macro-scale 2D photonic crystal meta-materials are first described. Through comparison of experimental and theoretical beam evolution about the super-collimation frequencies, the effects of disorder on beam evolution are pinpointed. Despite the effects of disorder, super-collimation is found to be robust, producing stationary beam-widths over 600 isotropic diffraction-lengths. In addition, nano-scale photonic crystal defect modes are studied over large optical bandwidths through newly developed supercontinuum based techniques. Novel all-fiber supercontinuum sources facilitate the generation of unpolarized supercontinuum light over 1.2-2.0 micron wavelengths. Broadband experimental methods make possible the application of these sources to the study of 1D and 3D photonic crystals with defect states. Studies of both static and dynamic microring resonator based HIC filters are described. Numerous microring based studies are reported which lead to frequency-compensated multi-ring filters, permitting the first high-fidelity microring filters in HIC microphotonics.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Rakich, Peter Thomas

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Erich P. Ippen.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37056

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37056