Band-gap engineering in two-dimensional semiconductor-dielectric photonic crystals

This paper reports the multiple band gaps in the two-dimensional semiconductor-dielectric photonic crystals of several compositions: semiconductor cylinders in the dielectric background. We consider both square lattice and hexagonal lattice arrangements and compute extensive band structures using a plane-wave method within the framework of an efficient standard eigenvalue problem for both E and H polarizations. The whole range of filling fraction has been explored to claim the existence of the lowest (the so-called acoustic) band gap and multiple higher-energy band gaps within the first 30 to 40 bands for various compositions. Such semiconductor-dielectric photonic crystals which are shown to possess huge lowest band gaps below a threshold frequency (the plasma frequency omega(p) ) have an advantage over the dielectric photonic crystals in the emerging technology based on the photonic crystals.