High-contrast all-glass volumetric photonic crystal

In this work we designed and made a photonic crystal structure with a photonic band gap around 532 nm wavelength. The structure was to be made from two commercially available glasses. Both should have similar temperature coefficients (alpha), also melting and softening temperatures should be as close as possible in order to thermally process both glasses together. In addition the refractive indexes of chosen glasses should be as different as possible in order to facilitate a wide band gap. The pair of glasses that met those requirements is LLF1 and SF6 produced by Schott. For those two glasses we performed a series of computer simulations using MIT MPB software. After checking various structures the widest band gap for the 532 nm wavelength was found for the hexagonal structure of high dielectric constant rods in low index material with a linear fill factor of 0.12 and a lattice constant 3.75 mu m. This structure was manufactured using the stack and draw method. The measurements of the final structure made by ESM show that it is regular, with diffusion between glasses at the manageable level. This assures that manufacture process is repeatable.