Optics Communications 266 (2006) 342–348

www.elsevier.com/locate/optcom

Discussion

Design and analysis of two-dimensional photonic crystals channel lter

Hongliang Ren *, Chun Jiang, Weisheng Hu, Mingyi Gao, Jingyuan Wang
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

Received 17 November 2005; received in revised form 20 February 2006; accepted 15 March 2006

Abstract

A novel three-port channel add/drop lter consisting of two waveguides and two cavities is proposed. One is used for a resonant tun-
neling-based channel add/drop operation from the bus waveguide to the add/drop waveguide, while the other is used to realize the wave-
length-selective reection feedback in the bus waveguide. By means of coupled mode theory in time, the conditions to achieve 100% add
eciency are derived thoroughly. Based on these theoretical analysis, the channel add lter and some other multi-channel lters are
designed in two-dimensional photonic crystals (2D PCs) with square lattice of dielectric rods in air. The numerical results by using
the nite-dierence time-domain (FDTD) method demonstrate almost complete channel add/drop tunneling at resonance via the
three-port systems.
Ó 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Side-coupled; Photonic crystal; Channel add/drop lter; Wavelength-selective reection

1. Introduction Mach–Zehnder interferometers are less sensitive to fabri-

With articial periodic structures, photonic crystals
(PCs) can generate band gaps that forbid light propaga-
tion at certain frequency ranges. Utilizing photonic band
gaps, various optical devices have been designed based on
PCs, including all kinds of active and passive devices,
which promote the advance of optical integration greatly.
One of the most interesting devices produced by PCs is an
ultra compact and high-integrated channel add/drop lter,
which is of signicant importance for dense wavelength
division multiplexing (DWDM) optical communications
systems [1]. So far, the channel add/drop lters based
on PCs are realized by utilizing the non-resonant coupling
between two parallel photonic crystal waveguides placed
in proximity [2–4], Mach–Zehnder interferometers pro-
duced by PCs [5], super prism eects in PCs [6], or
through resonant cavities created by point defect in PCs
[7–10]. These structures such as directional couplers or
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 21 6293 3302 8024; fax: +86 21 6293
3306.
E-mail address: hlren@sjtu.edu.cn (H. Ren).
cation deviations. However, add/drop desired wavelengths
in the systems implemented through resonant cavities in
PCs are very sensitive to the cavities physical structures,
which means a big challenge for the fabrication. So it is
necessary to reduce the sensitivity to fabrication devia-
tions for the devices design in add/drop systems through
resonant cavities in PCs.
In order to achieve complete channel add/drop trans-
fer at resonance (i.e., 100% channel add/drop eciency),
the four-port channel add/drop system consisting of two
symmetrical micro-cavities between the two parallel
waveguides is found by Fan et al. [7,8], and the system
should support two degenerate modes between two par-
allel waveguides, which determines a rigid and complex
resonator design [8,9,13]. A three-port system with reec-
tion feedback is proposed by Hanjo Lim’s group [14]. In
their structure, the bus waveguide is closed at one end
for 100% reection feedback, and the satisfying drop e-
ciency can be achieved. But the light over the entire
wavelength range, except at the resonant wavelengths
will be reected back to the input port, which can lead
to severe noise to other components if the designed

0030-4018/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.optcom.2006.03.019
 H. Ren et al. / Optics Communications 266 (2006) 342–348 343

structure is integrated. Recently, a channel drop lter the analysis based on the coupled mode theory in time
based-on in-plane hetero photonic crystals with the dif- [12,14], the results can be expressed as
ferent lattice constants has been proposed by Noda’s 1
group, where the narrow dropped signal around the R¼  2Qe ; ð1Þ
x
resonant wavelength is reected back by the hetero- j x0  1 þ Q1 þ 2Q1
o e
structure interface due to the presence of mode-gap,  
x 1
and the drop eciency is improved greatly [17,18]. j x0  1 þ Q
o
Actually, reection feedback has been used to improve T ¼   ; ð2Þ
x
j x0  1 þ Q þ 2Q1
1
the drop eciency of various lters engineered by several o e

researchers [11,15,16]. If the reection feedback has no
wavelength-selective characteristic, however, it is easy to
introduce noise to the system when the large-scale
photonic integration is performed.
In the paper, a point defect cavity side-coupled to a line
defect waveguide is used to achieve complete wavelength-
selective reection feedback in a three-port system. The
conditions to achieve complete power transfer from the
add waveguide to the bus waveguide are derived, and a
close to 100% add eciency at resonance can be obtained
by numerical simulation. The structure has some merits:
the functions of two cavities are independent, and the
direct coupling between the cavities is not required. These
merits determine the conditions of complete power transfer
at resonance are not so rigid that it is possible to bring
exibility with respect to the devices design and reduce
the fabrication diculties resulting from the sensitivity
to fabrication deviations. With the wavelength-selective
reection cavity, some add/drop lters are designed in
2D PCs with square lattice of dielectric rods in air, and
the numerical results using the FDTD method with per-
fectly matched layers (PML) absorbing boundary condi-
tions verify the feasibility.
2. Theoretical model analysis
A cavity side-coupled to a waveguide is used as a wave-
length-selective reector, where both the micro-cavity and
the waveguide support only one mode in the frequency
range of interest, and the cavity possesses a mirror reec-
tion symmetry with respect to the reference plane, which
is at the center of the resonator (see Fig. 1). According to
where R is the back reection from the input port, T is the
transmission through the waveguide, x0 is the resonant
frequency of the cavity, Qo is the quality factor due to
intrinsic loss, and Qe is the quality factor that is related
to the rate of decay into the waveguide.
From the above equations, at x = x0, close to 100%
reection (i.e. |R|2  0, |T|2  1) is realized when the condi-
tion Qo  Qe is satised. The full-width at half-maximum
(FWHM) of the reection spectrum can be expressed as
r = 2(x0/Qo + x0/2Qe). With the condition Qo  Qe
inserted, the FWHM can be rewritten as r  x0/Qe. So
at a given resonant frequency, the line-width is determined
by the value of Qe, which is dependent on the distance
between the cavity and the waveguide to a great degree.
In order to obtain the narrow wavelength-selective reec-
tion spectrum, the distance between the cavity and wave-
guide should be chosen reasonably so that Qe should be
as high as possible.
Subsequently, the wavelength-selective reection cavity
is applied to the three-port system for channel add lter
(shown in Fig. 2). The reection cavity is put on the side
of the bus waveguide, and the channel add waveguide per-
pendicular to the bus waveguide is put on the other side to
avoid the direct coupling between the wavelength-selective
reection cavity and the channel add cavity. The two cav-
ities possess mirror reection symmetry with respect to
their own reference planes that are the center planes of
add waveguide
R'

S −1 S +1
Point-defect
Bus waveguide
Line-defect
cavity a
waveguide S +3 S ' +3 S '+ 2 S +2
λ2
λ1 T2 T1
R T

S −3 S '− 3 S '− 2 S −2
d
Point-defect
Point-defect
cavity b Reference plane Reference plane
cavity
Fig. 2. A three-port channel add lter with the two micro-cavities.
Reference plane The cavity a is used for channel add operation, while the other cavity b is
used to realize the wavelength-selective reection feedback in the bus
Fig. 1. Basic structure of a waveguide side-coupled to a cavity. waveguide.
344 H. Ren et al. / Optics Communications 266 (2006) 342–348

cavity a and b, respectively, and the waveguides with them S 2

T1 ¼ ¼ ½ðr cos /  j sin /Þ  1
support single mode in the designed spectrum range. The S þ1
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
amplitudes of the incoming (outgoing) waves in the bus
eðjh1 jh2 Þ 2Q1Q
waveguide are represented by S+2(S2) and S 0þ2 ðS 02 Þ,   
1 2
; ð14Þ
S+3(S3) and S 0þ3 ðS 03 Þ, in the add waveguide by r sin /
j x0  1 þ 2Q þ Q þ 2Q1 þ 1r2Qcos /
x 1
2 oa 1 2
S+1(S1), respectively. Based on the coupled theory mode qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
in time, the amplitudes of the cavity a, b and the outgoing jðh1 h2 /=2Þ 1
S 3 e 2Q1 Q2
waves can be described as T2 ¼ ¼ ð1  rÞ   ;
S þ1 j x
1þ r sin /
þ þ 1 þ 1r cos /
1
  rffiffiffiffiffiffi x0 2Q2 Qoa 2Q1 2Q2
da x0 x0 x0 jh1 x0
¼ jx0    aþe S þ1 ð15Þ
dt Qoa 2Q1 2Q2 Q1
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi S 1
1
x0 0 x0 R0 ¼ ¼   Q1
 1; ð16Þ
þ ejh2 S þ ejh2 S þ2 ; ð3Þ S þ1 j x  1 þ r sin / þ 1 þ 1 þ 1r cos /
2Q2 þ2 2Q2 x0 2Q Q 2Q 2Q
  rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 2 oa 1 2
db x0 x0 x0 jh3 x0 jh3 0
¼ jx0   bþ e S þ3 þ e S þ3 ; where T1 is the transmission through the right forward bus
dt Qob 2Q3 2Q3 2Q3
waveguide, T2 is the transmission through the left back-
ð4Þ ward bus waveguide, and R 0 is the back reection from
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
0 jh3 x0 the add waveguide.
S 3 ¼ S þ3  e b; ð5Þ When the conditions of Qoa  Q1, Qoa  Q2 and
2Q3
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi Qob  Q3 are well satised, the add eciency g at x = x0
x0
S 03 ¼ S þ3  ejh3 b; ð6Þ is expressed as
2Q3
2 4kð1  cos /Þ
S 0þ3 ¼ S 02 ejbd ; ð7Þ g ¼ jT 1 j ¼ ; ð17Þ
2k 2 ð1  cos /Þ þ 2kð1  cos /Þ þ 1
S 0þ2 ¼ S 03 ejbd ; ð8Þ
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi where Q1/Q2 is equal to k, and k is a plus value.
x0
S 02 ¼ S þ2  ejh2 a; ð9Þ It is veried that the add eciency attains 100% from
2Q2 Eq. (17) at k = 0.5 and / = (2n + 1)p, where n is the
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
x0 integer. At resonance, Fig. 3 shows the add eciency as a
S 2 ¼ S 0þ2  ejh2 a; ð10Þ
2Q2 function of / when k is equal to 0.25, 0.5, and 1, respec-
rffiffiffiffiffiffi tively. It is clear that the add eciency is less sensitive to
x0
S 1 ¼ S þ1 þ ejh1 a; ð11Þ the phase error near (2n + 1)p, which will bring about
Q1
exibility with respect to the lter design and reduce the
where x0 is the resonant frequency of the two cavities, fabrication diculties, where n is the integer. Actually,
Qoa and Qob are the quality factors due to intrinsic loss the structure in Fig. 2 used to couple narrow-band signals
of the cavity a and b, respectively, Q1 is the quality factor into the bus waveguide, is simply the ‘time-reversed’ pro-
of the cavity a that is related to the rate of decay into the cess of the tunneling-based channel drop operation [19],
add waveguide, Q2 and Q3 are the quality factors of the
cavity a and b that are connected with the rates of decay
into the bus waveguide, respectively, h1 and h2 are the
phases of the coupling coecients between the cavity a 1 k = 0.5
mode and the add waveguide mode or bus waveguide
k =1
mode, respectively, h3 is the phase of coupling coecient
0.8
between the cavity b mode and the bus waveguide mode,
and b is the propagation constant of the waveguide. The
Add efficiency

k = 0.25
center planes of cavity a and b are considered as the ref- 0.6

erence planes, respectively, and d is the distance between

the two reference planes. 0.4
Supposing
1
0.2
r¼  2Q3 ; ð12Þ
x
j x0  1 þ Q1 þ 2Q1
ob 3
0
/ ¼ 2bd; ð13Þ 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
φ /π
when wave is launched only at the entrance to the add Fig. 3. The curve of add eciency as a function of phase / for k = 0.25,
waveguide (S+2 = 0, S+3 = 0), by solving the equations 0.5, and 1 (denoted by the thick solid, thin solid and dotted curves,
from (3) to (11) respectively), supposing 100% reection feedback at resonance.
 H. Ren et al. / Optics Communications 266 (2006) 342–348 345

and it is evident that these theoretical analysis demonstrate

the notion.

3. Design and numerical simulation

Fig. 4(a) shows the three-port structure with the wave-

length-selective reection cavity in 2D PCs with high
dielectric rods in air. The PCs are made up of a square lat-
tice of high-index dielectric rods with a refractive index of
3.4 and a radius of 0.20a, and it possesses a band-gap only
for the transverse magnetic (TM) mode that has its electric
eld parallel to the rod, where a is the lattice constant of
the square array. The smaller rod that denes the defect
of the channel add cavity has a radius of 0.042a, and the
two rods at the interface between the cavity and the chan-
nel add waveguide or bus waveguide have a radius of
0.211a. They all have the same dielectric constant as the
background rods. The wavelength-selective reection cav-
ity consists of the point defect cavity side-coupled to the
bus waveguide, and the smaller rod of the wavelength-
selective reection cavity has a radius of 0.042a, and the
rod between the cavity and the bus waveguide has a radius
of 0.23a to assure that the two cavities have the same res-
onant wavelength precisely, where the dielectric constant
of them is same as that of the background rods. It is easy
for the cavity to realize the wavelength-selective reection
function due to the innite Qo in the desired 2D PCs on
the basis of the analysis in Section 2, where Qo is the qual-
ity factor due to intrinsic loss of the wavelength-selective
reection cavity. The structure has been simulated using
the FDTD method with PML absorbing boundary condi-
tions to calculate the transmission performance.
As shown in Fig. 4(a), when the wavelength-selective
reection cavity is not present and wave is launched at
the port B, the add eciency at the port A is 58% at
resonance, and Q1/Q2  0.5 is easily obtained based on
the coupled mode theory in time [14], where Q1 and Q2
are the corresponding quality factors of the cavity a men-
tioned above, and the quality factor Qo due to intrinsic loss
is innite in the desired 2D PCs. When the distance
between the two cavities is set to 5a, the guided mode has
a wave vector of 0.25(2pa1) at the resonant frequency,
and / = 2bd = 5p is satised.
Fig. 4(b) shows the transmission characteristics of the
three-port system in Fig. 4(a). The transmission spectra at
port A, C and the back reection spectrum from port B
are shown as the thin solid, thick solid, and dotted lines,
respectively. The transmission spectrum at port A shows a
Lorentzian line shape with a maximum close to 100% at
the resonant frequency, and the back reection spectrum
from port B is close to 100% over the entire spectrum,
except at resonance, where it drops to zero. The transmis-
sion spectrum at port C shows only a little light at the Fig. 4. (a) The three-port channel add system with the wavelength-
non-resonant wavelengths is present. It is clear that selective reection cavity. (b) The intensity spectra calculated by FDTD
coupling narrow-band signals into the bus waveguide is method. (c) The wave propagation at the resonant frequency shown in (a).
346 H. Ren et al. / Optics Communications 266 (2006) 342–348

realized. The steady eld pattern is obtained by launching a
continuous-wave (CW) at the resonant wavelength at port
B (shown in Fig. 4(c)). FDTD simulations with PML
absorbing boundary condition calculate the results, and
they do indeed verify complete channel add tunneling via
the three-port system.
Because the add operation is the ‘time-reversed’ process
of the channel drop operation [19], the tunneling-based
channels add and drop operation can be combined into a
compact form as shown in Fig. 5. The wavelength-selective
reection cavity locates in the central sections, and it
ensures full power transfer between the bus waveguide
and channel-add/drop micro-cavities. The left micro-cavity
takes the narrow-band signal out of the bus waveguide
while the right one couples signal from the transmitters
into the bus-waveguide, and the function of the wave-
length-selective reection cavity is similar to that of k/4
shifted distributed feedback resonators in Ref. [20].
For the three-port channel drop lter with the wave-
length-selective reection cavity [19], the light in the reec-
tion cavity at resonance will be magnied if the active
material can be introduced in the reection cavity, where
the quality factor of the reection cavity due to intrinsic
loss Qo is negative value. When the value of Qo is adjusted
and the reection cavity structure is designed reasonably,
the light intensity in the drop waveguide from amplied
backward decaying from the wavelength-selective reection
cavity and the light dropped via the channel drop cavity
itself will be equal to the intensity in the bus waveguide
from the decay of the reection cavity in the forward,
and a receiver that can receive and retransmit the same sig-
Drop waveguide Add waveguide
nal at the same time can be realized based on such a precise
design.
At some resonant frequencies covering the lattice band
gap, the parameters of two cavities and the distance d0
between them are designed. The dispersion relations
of the bus waveguide are calculated by the plane wave
expansion (PWE) method. By means of these numeric
results, the resonant frequencies are determined as the con-
dition 2bd = (2n + 1)p is satised, where n is integer. Table
1 shows the parameters about the design of the six-channel
drop lter as shown in Fig. 6(a). It is clear that the resonant
frequencies depend strongly on the cavities physical struc-
tures. In the structure, the six drop channels are put on
the two sides of bus waveguide, and corresponding wave-
length-selective reection cavities are put on the other sides.
The distance between the neighboring drop channel and
reection cavity should be 5a in order to avoid the coupling
between them, where a is the lattice constant. The black cir-
cles correspond to the two rods at the interface between
every channel drop cavity and the add/drop waveguide or
bus waveguide and the rod between every reection cavity
and the bus waveguide. As seen in Fig. 6(b), channel drop
eciencies larger than 95% are achieved in all channels.
Fig. 6(c) is the steady eld pattern when launching a
continuous (CW) at resonant wavelength (f = 0.34978c/a).
At the entrance to the bus waveguide, a little reection is
accounted for from the bus waveguide itself.
If the lattice constant a is 542 nm, the six channel-drop
wavelengths from k1 to k6 are 1652, 1575, 1550, 1529, 1517,
and 1468 nm, respectively, which cover the larger section of
optical communication wavelength ranges. But the wave-
length spacing will be too large for the need in the DWDM
system, and it is necessary to increase the Q value of these
micro-cavities, which means that the rods between these
cavities and waveguides need to be increased. In addition,
the loss in the vertical direction of a practical lter has to
be considered. If the omni-directional reectors [21] cover
on and below the two-dimensional lters, the vertical
connement can be obtained, which is called 2.5D micro-
photonics. Certainly, based on these theories, a channel-
drop lter based on 2D PCs with triangular lattice of air
holes in the semiconductor matrix is also able to be

Table 1
The parameters of the channel drop cavities and the corresponding
wavelength-selective reection cavities in Fig. 6(a) at some resonant
Bus waveguide
wavelengths
Frequency d0 Reection cavity Channel drop lter
(c/a) cavity
Defect The radius of Defect The radius of
radius black rod radius black rods
0.32804 5a 0.099a 0.242a 0.099a 0.21a
Wavelength-selective 0.34401 9a 0.082a 0.278a 0.082a 0.234a
0.34978 6a 0.0745a 0.18a 0.074a 0.272a
reflection cavity 0.35436 8a 0.068a 0.227a 0.069a 0.152a
Fig. 5. Schematic of channel-add/drop lter that can be used to receive 0.3572 10a 0.065a 0.209a 0.065a 0.185a
signal and inject new signal. 0.36919 5a 0.042a 0.23a 0.042a 0.211a
 H. Ren et al. / Optics Communications 266 (2006) 342–348 347

Fig. 6. (a) The structure of six-channel drop lter with the wavelength-selective cavities. (b) The drop intensity spectra of six-channel drop waveguides. (c)
The wave propagation at the resonant frequency (f = 0.34978c/a), corresponding to the third drop waveguide.
348 H. Ren et al. / Optics Communications 266 (2006) 342–348
designed, and it will be easy to achieve vertical connement
by means of such the structure, where the add/drop wave-
guide will not be vertical to the bus waveguide.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, a three-port channel-add lter with a wave-
length-selective reection cavity is proposed, which consists
of a cavity side-coupled to a waveguide. By means of coupled
mode theory in time, the conditions to achieve 100% add
eciency at resonance are derived in detail. Based on the
theoretical analysis, the three-port channel add lter with
the wavelength-selective cavity is engineered in 2D PCs,
and close to 100% add eciency numerically calculated by
FDTD method is achieved. Moreover, with the simple phase
condition, a six-channel drop lter is engineered, and larger
than 95% drop eciencies are obtained in all channels.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 60377023) and New Cen-
tury Excellent Talents of Universities (NCET), Shanghai
Optical Science and Technology Project.
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