Optical properties of three-dimensional photonic crystals based on III–V semiconductors at infrared to near-infrared wavelengths

Abstract

The optical properties of three-dimensional photonic crystals based on III–V semiconductors are investigated. The crystals are constructed by stacking GaAs (or InP) stripes with a wafer-fusion technique to form an asymmetric face-centered-cubic structure. It is shown that a crystal with eight-stacked layers (two units), whose period is 4 μm, has a considerable band-gap effect (∼30 dB attenuation) in the transmission spectrum at infrared wavelengths (5–10 μm), and the band gap is observed independently of the incident angles. Then, a crystal with four-stacked layers with a submicron period is constructed, and a clear band gap (attenuation up to 10 dB) is successfully observed at near-infrared wavelengths (1–1.5 μm).