Using the Dispersive Properties of Photonic Crystals for Optical Communication

我们的目标是探索光子晶体和相关结构的时空色散特性在光通信应用中的应用。光子晶体是一种人工微结构，其折射率在与波长相当的长度尺度上被强烈调制。它们提供了一种操纵光的新机制。特别是，光子晶体的几个独特特性使它们成为光通信系统中新颖元件的特别有趣的材料系统。晶体表现出较强的空间色散特性。这些特性在超棱镜效应中得到了利用。晶体还具有较大的时间色散效应，如大的群延迟、强色散和显著的偏振依赖性。因此，光子晶体在实现光通信中的一些关键功能方面可能具有巨大的潜力，例如可调谐光延迟、动态色散补偿和减缓、波分复用和解复用。然而，为了实现光子晶体的潜力，了解如何设计光子晶体结构以满足光通信的严格要求至关重要。例如，高比特率应用的一个基本挑战是在足够大的带宽下实现显著的色散效应，该带宽足以覆盖感兴趣的信号。例如，对于波分复用，在感兴趣的波长范围内提供足够低的色散常数是很重要的。要理解如何设计这样的结构，需要更深入地了解能够产生这种行为的设备原理。因此，我们建议开展一个项目，在光通信应用的背景下，系统地研究光子晶体和相关结构的一些基本色散特性。拟议的活动将是理论性和计算性的。然而，这里的一个关键目标是产生新颖和功能结构的设计，这些结构在实验上是可行的，并回答与实验直接相关和重要的问题。在这样做的过程中，我们寻求直接影响在这个新兴的光子晶体技术领域已经在进行的广泛的实验努力。

Our objective in this proposal is to explore the use of the spatial and temporal dispersion characteristics of photonic crystals and related structures for optical communication applications. Photonic crystals are artificial microstructures where the index of refraction is strongly modulated at a length scale comparable to the wavelength. They provide a new mechanism for the manipulation of light. In particular, several unique characteristics of photonic crystals make them a particularly intriguing material system for novel components in optical communication systems. The crystals exhibit strong spatial dispersion characteristics. These characteristics have been exploited in the super-prism effect. The crystals also possess large temporal dispersion effects, such as large group delay, strong chromatic dispersion, and significant polarization dependency. Thus, photonic crystals may hold tremendous potential in performing some of the critical functionality in optical communications, such as tunable optical delay, dynamic dispersion compensation and mitigation, and wavelength division multiplexing and demultiplexing. To realize the potentials of photonic crystals, however, it is critically important to understand how photonic crystal structures can be engineered to meet the stringent requirements of optical communications. For example, a fundamental challenge for high bit rate applications is to achieve significant dispersive effects with a large enough bandwidth that is sufficient to cover the signal of interest. For wavelength division multiplexing, for example, it is important to provide sufficiently low dispersion constant over the wavelength range of interest. Understanding how to go about designing such structures will require a deeper understanding of device principles that could give such behaviors.We therefore propose to undertake a project that will systematically examine some of the fundamental dispersive properties of photonic crystals and related structures, in the context of optical communication applications. The proposed activities will be theoretical and computational in their nature. A key objective here, however, is to produce designs of novel and functional structures that are experimentally feasible, and to answer questions that are of immediate experimental relevance and importance. In doing so we seek to directly impact wide ranges of experimental efforts that are already ongoing in this emerging area of photonic crystal technology.