Nonreciprocal magnetic photonic crystals

We study band dispersion relations omega(k-->) of a photonic crystal with at least one of the constitutive components being a magnetically ordered material. It is shown that by proper spatial arrangement of magnetic and dielectric components one can construct a magnetic photonic crystal with strong spectral asymmetry (nonreciprocity) omega(k-->) not equal omega(-k-->). The spectral asymmetry, in turn, results in a number of interesting phenomena, in particular, one-way transparency when the magnetic photonic crystal, being perfectly transparent for a Bloch wave of frequency omega, "freezes" the radiation of the same frequency omega propagating in the opposite direction. The frozen radiation corresponds to a Bloch wave with zero group velocity partial differential omega(k)/ partial differential k=0 and, in addition, with partial differential(2)omega(k)/ partial differential k(2)=0.