Advanced Optical Functionalities in Photonic Crystals

High-quality self-assembled three-dimensionally-ordered photonic crystals have been synthesized with inorganic and polymeric colloids. These crystals display a pseudo bandgap in the UV / visible / near-IR regions with high values of reflectance combined with low transmission. The stop band characteristics have been modified after infiltrating these passive photonic crystals with materials such as ZnO as well as by synthesizing active photonic crystals directly from colloids made of organic dye-polymer composites. The emission characteristics of these active species are modified by the photonic crystal    environment due to the anisotropic stop band. It has been possible to fabricate photonic crystal heterostructures as well as photonic crystal waveguides for building functionalities into photonic integrated circuits.  BJ93GJCCMXAR