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Updated: Jul 16, 2026

Using Microwave and Macroscopic Samples of Dielectric Solids to Study the Photonic Properties of Disordered Photonic Bandgap Materials
Published on: September 26, 2014
Photonic band structure and symmetry properties of electromagnetic modes in photonic crystals
S B Cavalcanti1, M de Dios-Leyva, E Reyes-Gómez
1Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Maceió-AL, 57072-970, Brazil.
Abstract:
Within the Maxwell framework and using a transfer-matrix technique we have determined a general equation which governs the photonic band structure and the density of states of one-dimensional superlattices composed of two alternate layers characterized by different refractive indexes, which may take on positive as well as negative values. Besides the usual well-known results, we have found null-gap points for commensurate values of the optical path lengths of each layer. Furthermore, we have been able to characterize non-Bragg gaps that show up in frequency regions in which the average refractive index is null.
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