On the relationship between Bloch modes and phase-related refractive index of photonic crystals

It has previously been shown that the phase-related refractive index is positive in photonic crystals that display negative refraction at higher bands. We hypothesize that the phase velocity is governed by a wave that can be related to the dominant Bloch mode. This dominant wave can be identified from an approximate solution of Maxwell Equations using a homogeneously averaged dielectric constant and the dominant wavevector is related to the fundamental wavevector and the reciprocal lattice vectors. We validate this hypothesis by numerical Fourier decomposition of the field in the entire simulation domain. It confirms that for negative refraction at higher bands, the phase-related refractive index is indeed positive and differs significantly from the negative value of effective refractive index calculated from the band structure.