Electrochemically-Prepared 2D and 3D Photonic Crystals

Abstract

In the last ten years, ordered pore arrays with high aspect ratio have been studied extensively. Ordered porous dielectric materials are intrinsic 2D photonic crystals. Although there is a large variety of materials exhibiting pores, only silicon, alumina and InP are exhibiting the extremely high pore quality, to date, required in photonic crystal applications. Over the last 5 years, macroporous silicon as an infrared photonic crystal has been described in numerous publications. Porous alumina is a favorable candidate for photonic crystals, operating in the visible and InP for active devices as well as for non–linear optical applications. Finally, concepts and first realizations of 3D photonic crystals based on macroporous silicon were presented. All these experiments show that electrochemically–prepared photonic crystals are a model system to study the properties of photonic crystals in the visible and infrared regime as well as for possible technological applications operating in this spectral range. This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Materials Porous silicon Porous alumina Porous III–V semiconductors Application to photonic crystals Introduction 2D photonic crystals made of macroporous silicon Photonic defects in electrochemically–prepared 2D photonic crystals 3D photonic crystals made of macroporous silicon 2D photonic crystals made of porous alumina 1D photonic crystals made of InP 2D photonic crystals made of InP 3D photonic crystals made of InP and GaAs Summary.