Passive integrated circuits utilizing slow light in photonic crystal waveguides

We report thorough investigations of photonic crystal waveguide properties in the slow light regime. The transmission and the group index near the cutoff wavelengths oscillate in phase in close analogy with the ID photonic crystal behavior. The influence of having a finite number of periods in the photonic crystal waveguide is addressed to explain the spiky character of both the transmission and group index spectra. The profile of the slow-light modes is stretched out into the first and second rows of the holes closest to the waveguide channel. One of our strategies to ameliorate the design of photonic crystal devices is to engineer the radii of holes in these rows. A topology optimization approach is also utilized to make further improvements. The results of the numerical simulations and the optical characterization of fabricated devices such as straight waveguides with bends and couplers are presented. A nice match is found between theory and experiment.