Observation of Photonic Bandgap in GaInAsP/InP 2D Photonic Crystals by Equivalent Transmission Measurement

Semiconductor photonic crystals are promising candidates for realizing spontaneous emission control, i.e., enhancement of spontaneous emission rate (SER) and spontaneous emission factor. Schematic structure of various dimensions of photonic crystal and corresponding wave vector space inhibited by photonic bandgaps (PBGs) are summarized in Fig. 1. Due to the almost perfect PBG and single mode localized state, 3D structures are ideal. However, structures for optical wavelength range are still difficult to fabricate. We have studied 2D structures1,2) to confirm preliminary effects of photonic crystals. In this study, we simply predict the spontaneous emission control in 2D structures, and report the experiment to observe PBG in GaInAsP/InP 2D photonic crystals.