Complex Oxide Photonic Crystals

Abstract: Microphotonics has been offering a body of ideas to prospective applicationsin optics. Among those, the concept of photonic integrated circuits (PIC’s) has recently spurred a substantial excitement into the scientific community. Relisation of the PIC’s becomes feasible as the size shrinkage of the optical elements is accomplished. The elements based on photonic crystals (PCs) represent promising candidacy for manufacture of PIC’s. This thesis is devoted to tailoring of optical properties and advanced modelling of two types of photonic crystals: (Bi3Fe5O12/Sm3Ga5O12)m and (TiO2/Er2O3)m potentially applicable in the role optical isolators and optical amplifiers, respectively. Deposition conditions of titanium dioxide were first investigated to maximise refractive index and minimise absorption as well as surface roughness of titania films. It was done employing three routines: deposition at elevated substrate temperatures, regular annealing in thermodynamically equilibrium conditions and rapid thermal annealing (RTA). RTA at 500 oC was shown to provide the best optical performance giving a refractive index of 2.53, an absorption coefficient of 404 cm−1 and a root-mean-square surface roughness of 0.6 nm. Advanced modelling of transmittance and Faraday rotation for the PCs (Bi3Fe5O12/Sm3Ga5O12)5 and (TiO2/Er2O3)6 was done using the 4 × 4 matrix formalism of Višňovský. The simulations for the constituent materials in the forms of single films were performed using the Swanepoel and Višňovský formulae. This enabled generation of the dispersion relations for diagonal and off-diagonal elements of the permittivity tensors relating to the materials. These dispersion relations were utilised to produce dispersion relations for complex refractive indices of the materials. Integration of the complex refractive indices into the 4 × 4 matrix formalism allowed computation of transmittance and Faraday rotation of the PCs. The simulation results were found to be in a good agreement with the experimental ones proving such a simulation approach is an excellent means of engineering PCs.