Single-mode propagation of light in one dimensional all-dielectric light-guiding systems

Abstract

Numerical results are presented for single-mode guidance, which is based on photonic band gap (PBG) effect, in one-dimensional planar all-dielectric light-guiding systems. In such systems there may be two kinds of light-speed point (the intersection of a mode-dispersion curve and the light line of guiding region ambient medium): One is the intrinsic light-speed point that is independent of the guiding region width, and the other is the movable light-speed point that varies with the guiding region width. It is found that the intrinsic lightspeed point plays an important role to form the single-mode regime by destroying the coexistence of the lowest guided TM and TE modes that are born with a degeneration point. A mode-lost phenomenon is exposed and this phenomenon suggests a way of how to identify PBG guided fundamental modes. Quasi-cutoff-free index-guided modes in the PBG guiding structures are examined, which appear when the higher-index layers are adjacent to the guiding region and the guiding region width is small. The transverse resonance condition is derived in the Maxwell optics frame, and it is shown that there is a significant revision to the traditional one in the ray optics model. A sufficient and necessary condition for intrinsic light-speed points is given, which provides strong support to the numerical results.