Photonic crystal beam splitters

Abstract

This work studies two-dimensional photonic crystal beam splitters with two input ports and two output ports. The beam splitter structure consists of two orthogonally crossed line defects and one point defect in square-lattice photonic crystals. The point defect is positioned at the intersection of the line defects to divide the input power into output ports. If the position and the size of the point defect are varied, the power of two output ports can be identical. The beam splitters can be used in photonic crystal Mach-Zehnder interferometers or switches. The simulation results show that a large bandwidth of the extinction ratio larger than 20 dB can be obtained while two beams are interfered in the beam splitters. This enables photonic crystal beam splitters to be used in fiber optic communication systems.