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Updated: Jul 2, 2026

Using Microwave and Macroscopic Samples of Dielectric Solids to Study the Photonic Properties of Disordered Photonic Bandgap Materials
Published on: September 26, 2014
Hypersonic modulation of light in three-dimensional photonic and phononic band-gap materials
A V Akimov1, Y Tanaka, A B Pevtsov
1A. F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, St. Petersburg, 194021 Russia.
Abstract:
The elastic coupling between the a-SiO2 spheres composing opal films brings forth three-dimensional periodic structures which besides a photonic stop band are predicted to also exhibit complete phononic band gaps. The influence of elastic crystal vibrations on the photonic band structure has been studied by injection of coherent hypersonic wave packets generated in a metal transducer by subpicosecond laser pulses. These studies show that light with energies close to the photonic band gap can be efficiently modulated by hypersonic waves.
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