Waveguides in inverted opal photonic crystals

Waveguiding phenomena are investigated in an inverted opal photonic crystal made of interpenetrating air spheres, coated with amorphous Ge. Here we focus on the complete gap between the 8th and the 9th band, since a projected band analysis reveals that it is difficult to use the large lower incomplete gap for guiding purposes. Two kinds of line defects are analyzed within this photonic structure, with the plane-wave expansion method. The first one consists of an air cylinder in the Gamma - K direction. It gives rise to a large number of defect modes in the bandgap. Most of these modes have large field components at the surface. The second defect is an array of air spheres, also along the Gamma - K direction. This is shown to avoid the surface-like modes and sustain only two modes associated with different polarizations, in the frequency range of interest. The air mode waveguiding bandwidth reaches up to 113 nm centered at a wavelength of 1.5 mu m. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.