Abstract
A new experimental method in the microwave regime is introduced to verify the performance of guided-wave
photonic devices with high-index contrast. In particular, a novel broadband slow-light or high-dispersion
photonic-crystal (PC) waveguide (WG) is studied. By scaling up the structure dimensions, the equivalent fabrication
uncertainty can be reduced to 0.5 nm, which, in combination with the available microwave equipment, allows the
conduction of reference measurements with a precision that is not possible in optics. Based on these experiments,
several numerical band calculation methods for designing the PC-WGs are evaluated, and out of three accurate
methods, we identify a fast tool. Furthermore, we check the accuracy of PC device simulations with the finite
integration technique using the aforementioned PC-WG. We demonstrate that the device exhibits a region with a low
group velocity of 4% of the vacuum speed of light and a region with a high chromatic dispersion of 4 ps/(mm · nm), both in a 1-THz bandwidth. For the
first time, we quantify by experiments that a random disorder of the hole radii by 5%, which can be caused by
fabrication imperfections, does not significantly degrade the group velocity behavior.
© 2007 IEEE
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