Analyzing the photonic band gaps in two-dimensional fractal plasma photonic crystals with Monte Carlo method

Abstract

In this paper, the properties of photonic band gaps (PBGs) in two types of two-dimensional plasma-dielectric photonic crystals (2D PPCs) under transverse-magnetic (TM) wave are theoretically investigated by a novel modified plane wave expansion (PWE) method as Monte Carlo method is introduced. The configuration of 2D PPCs is the square lattices with fractal Sierpinski gasket structure whose constituents are homogeneous and isotropic. The type-1 PPCs is filled with the dielectric cylinders in the plasma background, while its complementary structure is called type-2 PPCs, whose plasma cylinders are inserted into the dielectric background. The simulated results also demonstrate that the type-1 PPCs are easier to produce the PBGs in higher frequency region compared with the type-2 PPCs. If the filling factors are same, the 2D PPCs with Sierpinski gasket structure not only have a larger cutoff frequency but also the more and larger PBGs can appear in higher frequency region compared with the conventional 2D PPCs. The effects of plasma frequency on the PBGs also are investigated in detail. Those results reveal that the present type-1 PPCs are more suitable to design the tunable compacted devices.