Photonic bandgap crystals can reflect light for any direction of propagation in specific wavelength ranges1,2,3. This property, which can be used to confine, manipulate and guide photons, should allow the creation of all-optical integrated circuits. To achieve this goal, conventional semiconductor nanofabrication techniques have been adapted to make photonic crystals4,5,6,7,8,9. A potentially simpler and cheaper approach for creating three-dimensional periodic structures is the natural assembly of colloidal microspheres10,11,12,13,14,15. However, this approach yields irregular, polycrystalline photonic crystals that are difficult to incorporate into a device. More importantly, it leads to many structural defects that can destroy the photonic bandgap16,17. Here we show that by assembling a thin layer of colloidal spheres on a silicon substrate, we can obtain planar, single-crystalline silicon photonic crystals that have defect densities sufficiently low that the bandgap survives. As expected from theory, we observe unity reflectance in two crystalline directions of our photonic crystals around a wavelength of 1.3 micrometres. We also show that additional fabrication steps, intentional doping and patterning, can be performed, so demonstrating the potential for specific device applications.

On-chip natural assembly of silicon photonic bandgap crystals

An artificial crystal structure has been fabricated exhibiting a full three-dimensional photonic bandgap effect at optical communication wavelengths. The photonic crystal was constructed by stacking 0.7-micrometer period semiconductor stripes with the accuracy of 30 nanometers by advanced wafer-fusion technique. A bandgap effect of more than 40 decibels (which corresponds to 99.99% reflection) was successfully achieved. The result encourages us to create an ultra-small optical integrated circuit including a three-dimensional photonic crystal waveguide with a sharp bend.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/289/5479/604.full.pdf

Full three-dimensional photonic bandgap crystals at near-infrared wavelengths

Photonic crystals have proven their potential and are nowadays a familiar concept. They have been approached from many scientific and technological flanks. Among the many techniques devised to implement this technology self-assembly has always been one of great popularity surely due to its ease of access and the richness of results offered. Self-assembly is also probably the approach entailing more materials aspects owing to the fact that they lend themselves to be fabricated by a great many, very different methods on a vast variety of materials and to multiple purposes. To these well-known material systems a new sibling has been born (photonic glass) expanding the paradigm of optical materials inspired by solid state physics crystal concept. It is expected that they may become an important player in the near future not only because they complement the properties of photonic crystals but because they entice the researchers' curiosity. In this review a panorama is presented of the state of the art in this field with the view to serve a broad community concerned with materials aspects of photonic structures and more so those interested in self-assembly.

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Self-assembled photonic structures.

TOPICAL REVIEW: Magnetophotonic crystals

Sphere templating methods for periodic porous solids

The spectra of transmission and reflection of synthetic opal which has 3-dimensional periodic structure were measured at different orientations of incident beam relative to the sample facets. It is shown that opal behaves as «semi-metallic» photonic band gap (PBG) material in the vicinity of photon energy 2.3 eV. The synthesis of CdS microcrystals embedded in the pores of opal was made for the first time in an attempt to form a system of quantum dots. Optical spectra (reflection and transmission, photoluminescence and Raman scattering) were studied. The results demonstrate good crystallinity of microcrystals embedded in opal matrix and exhibit well-pronounced quantum confinement effects in fundamental edge absorption spectra. The spectral overlap of the PBG of opal with electronic band gap of many of II–VI semiconductors seems to make opal/semiconductor system a promising media for experimental studies of such PBG-related effects as inhibition of spontaneous emission, microcavity polariton, etc.

L. A. Samoilovich

Papers

Optical spectroscopy of opal matrices with CdS embedded in its pores: Quantum confinement and photonic band gap effects