Science Front Publishers Journal for Foundations and Applications of Physics, vol. 5, No.

2 (2018)
(sciencefront.org) ISSN 2394-3688

Broad inhibition of transmission frequency

in multilayered dielectric
one dimensional photonic crystal nanostructure

Vinod Chacko1*, Sonia Bansal1 and A. K. Hafiz2

1
Department of Humanities and Applied Sciences, YMCAUST, Haryana, India
2
Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
*Corresponding author E-mail: vinodchackophy@gmail.com

(Received 11 April 2018, Accepted 24 May 2018, Published 06 June 2018)

Abstract
We report the omnidirectional reflection (ODR) in one dimensional photonic crystal
(PC) structure consisting of alternate layers of Cryolite (Na3AlF6) as material of low refractive
index and Germanium (Ge) as material of high refractive index. The effects of the thickness of
layers and incidence angles on the spectral reflectance have been investigated using transfer
matrix method (TMM). The proposed structure gives 100% reflection within a wide range of
wavelengths in the visible-near IR region (600 nm- 850 nm) which can be tuned according to
the design parameters. We observe that cryolite based photonic crystal structure can be used
as a good candidate for wavelength filter or broad reflector in the near infrared spectrum
which is very useful in many imaging sensors in the field of optical technology.

Keywords: cryolite; photonics; photonic crystals; omnidirectional reflector; transfer matrix

method; cryolite based 1DPC; 1DPC
1. Introduction
Photonic Crystals (PCs) are optical nanostructures with a periodic modulation in the refractive
index on the length scale comparable to optical wavelength. They are characterized by
electromagnetic forbidden bands or photonic band gaps (PBGs). In other words, the propagation of
electromagnetic waves, whose frequencies lie within the PBGs, is prohibited. This unique feature of
the photonic crystal structures controls dramatically the flow of light within the structure and can
lead to many potential applications in field of photonics [1-7]. The propagation of photons in PCs is
analogous to propagation of electrons in semiconductor crystals where the effect of periodic
refractive index in PCs is same as the effect of periodic potential function on propagation of
electrons in semiconductors.

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In these structures the refractive index is a periodic function in space and if the refractive
index is periodic only in one dimension then the structure is called one dimensional photonic crystal
(1DPC), if it is periodic in two dimensions and three dimensions then the structure is known as two
dimensional photonic crystal (2DPC) and three dimensional photonic crystal (3DPC) respectively.
PCs that work in microwave and far-infrared regions are relatively easier to fabricate. However,
PCs that work in visible and the infrared (IR) regions, especially, 3DPC are difficult to fabricate
because of their small lattice constants, which have to be comparable to the wavelength. Therefore,
1D PCs, which can easily be produced by the thin film deposition techniques, are preferable for use
in the visible and IR regions [8-14]. The simplest 1DPC is an alternating stack of two different
mediums having reflection properties which find them used in variety of applications including high
efficiency mirrors, Fabry Perot cavities, optical filters and feedback lasers [15-22]. In recent time
optical reflectors are one of the most widely used optical devices and a great deal of work has been
done on the omnidirectional reflectors [23-26]. In metallic reflector 27, light can be reflected over a
wide range of frequencies for arbitrary incident angles however, at higher frequencies considerable
amount of power is lost due to the absorption. In comparison to metallic reflectors a cryolite based
multilayered nanostructures have high reflectivity in a certain range of frequencies, but the
reflectivity is very sensitive to the incident angles. The range of reflected frequency of these
reflectors can be enhanced by the appropriate selection of the material parameters and layer
thickness [28-31].
The space-time dispersion of cryolite conductivity was analyzed and the optical properties
of cryolite were studied [32]. Thus, cryolite has unique optical properties which make it useful in
designing of opto-electronic devices. In the present study, we have neglected field absorption /
attenuation as the constituent materials have negligible absorption coefficients in the wavelength
range of interest. We observe that cryolite based photonic crystal structure can be used as a good
candidate for wavelength filter or broad reflector in the near infrared spectrum which is very useful
in many imaging sensors in the field of optical technology. The paper is organized as follows. In
Section 2 we develop the theoretical tool to analyze the ODR properties and linear characteristics of
the 1D PC. In Section 3, we discuss the results obtained on the ODR properties of the cryolite based
1DPC. Finally, in Section 4, we conclude the paper.

2. Theoretical Analysis
To calculate the dispersion relation and reflection characteristics for the incident
electromagnetic wave the Maxwell’s equation is solved numerically by the transfer matrix method
[15].

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Figure 1. Periodic refractive index profile of the structure having refractive indices
n1 and n2 respectively

The geometry of the structure under study is shown in the Fig. 1. Consider the propagation of EM
wave along x-axis normal to the interface in one-dimensional system composed of periodic arrays
of two different materials with a refractive index n1 and n2 and layer thickness d1 and d2. The
indices of refraction of the system are given as,
n , 0 < < d
n x =
n , d < < d
(1)
with n(x) = n(x + d). where d1 and d2 are the thicknesses of the layers and d = d1+ d2 is the
period of the structure. The electromagnetic field distribution within each layer can be
expressed as the sum of right- and left-hand side propagating wave. The electric field within
the both layers of the nth unit cell can be written as
E x = a e + b e eω (2)
E x = c e " + d e " eω (3)
"
Where k = $% & ω
'
( − β * = & ω
cos θ ,
'
θi is the ray angle in the ith layer (i = 1, 2), β is the propagation constant and ni is the refractive
index of the constituent layers. The coefficients an, bn, cn, and dn are related through the continuity
boundary conditions at the interfaces x = (n − 1) d and x =(n −1)d +d2. This continuity condition
leads to the matrix equations, which relates the coefficient in the first layer of the nth cell, is given as
%0-./ (=T %0-. ( (4)
./ .

where Tn is called the transfer matrix given by

A B
T =% ( (5)
C B
The matrix elements A, B, C and D are

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A=e 5cos k d + i %η + ( sin k d 7

η
(6)

B=e 5 i %η − ( sin k d 7 (7)

η

C=e 5− i %η − η( sin k d 7 (8)

D=e 5cos k d − i %η + ( sin k d 7 (9)

η
The parameter η depends on the polarization. For the TE and TM polarizations, η is given by
η9: = (10)
"

and
"
η9: = "
"
(11)
"

For finite stacks, the coefficient of right and left hand side propagating wave in both sides of the
multilayer structure aN and bN, are calculated by multiplying transfer matrix of each cell as
%0-; ( = T T … T= %0-> ( (12)
; >

where N is the total number of the cell. The coefficient of reflection is given by solving above
matrix equation with the condition bN = 0 as
r= = %0-; ( (13)
;

Thus the reflectivity (or reflectance) of the structure may be calculated as

R = =|r= | (14)
Now, according to Bloch theorem, the electric field vector is of the form B = BC D EF GH CD

where BC D is periodic with ‘d’. For the determination of K as a function of eigenvalue, the
equation is written as

A B a a
5 7 5b 7 = e I 5b 7 (15)
C D

The solution of this matrix equation leads to the dispersion relation for the PC structure

K ω = % ( cos 5cos k d cos k d − %η + η( sin k d sin k d 7 (16)

The existence of omnidirectional photonic band gap in one dimensional photonic crystal
requires the incident waves to be launched from vacuum or from a low refractive index ambient
medium [5].

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3. Result & Discussion

Figure 2: Schematic representation of proposed structure (AB)25

with all A’s as Cryolite and all B’s as Ge

In this section we present the numerical analysis of the proposed PC structure and show the
Omni-directional reflection bands for both TE and TM polarizations. The value of refractive index
for the Na3AlF6 is taken as 1.34 and Ge is 4.2 at λ0=800 nm. The thickness of the layers are taken
as according to quarter wave stacks condition i.e. d1=λ0/4n1=149.25 nm and d2=λ0/4n2=47.61 nm.
The reflection spectra obtained for the total number of layers N=25 is depicted in Fig-3 for both TE
and TM polarizations. From the study of these figures it is observed that as the angle of incidence
increases the reflection band width increases for TE mode while it decreases for TM mode and at
the same time the reflection band is shifted towards lower wavelength region (blue shifted) as
shown in (Table 1). The width of reflection band has larger value for the TE mode in comparison to
the TM mode. At oblique incidence, different polarizations (TE and TM) exhibit different
reflectance. When a PC reflects light of both polarizations incident at any angle within a certain
frequency range, the PC is said to have a complete omnidirectional bandgap. We observe that light
waves of a wavelength range from (595.8 nm to 845.8 nm) are always reflected from the proposed
structure irrespective of the state of polarization. Thus one dimensional multilayered Na3AlF6 –Ge
photonic crystal structure shows omnidirectional reflection band in the wavelength region
(595.8nm - 845.8nm) and can be used as a good candidate for making wavelength filters in the
visible–near infrared spectrum from (595.8nm-845.8nm) wavelength range when N is large enough.

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Table 1. Total reflectance region band width for [Cryolite-Ge] at the various incident angles
for TE and TM modes for N=25

TE TM
LOWER UPPER BAND LOWER UPPER BAND
Na3AlF6-Ge
BAND BAND GAP BAND BAND GAP
N=25
EGDE (nm) EDGE (nm) (nm) EGDE (nm) EDGE (nm) (nm)

ϴ=00 595.8 1217 621.2 595.8 1217 621.2

ϴ=300 564.8 1202 637.2 580.8 1136 555.2
ϴ=600 500.6 1173 672.4 552 952.2 400.2
ϴ=890 468.3 1158 689.7 538.7 845.8 307.1

Omni directional reflection band = 845.8 nm-595.8 nm=250 nm

(a) (b)

Figure 3. The reflectance spectra for TE and TM modes showing the total reflection region and
bandwidth for n1=1.34, n2=4.2, d1=149.25 nm, d2=47.61 nm and N=25 at various incident angles,

(a) TE, θ=0°,30°,60°,89° (b)TM, θ=0°,30°,60°,89°

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(a)

(b)

Figure 4: (a) Transmissivity variation with wavelength and angle of incidence (deg.) for TE

modes (Red lines) and TM modes (Blue lines) in multilayered Cryolite-Ge.

(b) Dispersion relation with variation of angle of incidence (deg.) for TE modes (Red

lines) and TM modes (Blue lines) for Cryolite-Ge

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4. Conclusion
We have investigated theoretically the omnidirectional bandgap properties in proposed 25 layer
1DPC in the range of 150 nm thick cryolite films and 50 nm thick Ge films as alternate layers. The
propagation properties and dispersion characteristics for both TE and TM modes for the structure of
interest is analyzed using transfer matrix method and it is observed that there exists an
omnidirectional band gap of 250 nm from (845.8nm-595.8nm) in the visible-near infrared region
which makes this structure to be used as wavelength filters. We observe that cryolite based photonic
crystal structure can be used as a good candidate for complete inhibition of transmission of
frequency in near IR region and it can be tuned by changing the design parameters. The proposed
use of these multilayered nanostructures is as omnidirectional reflectors and near IR wavelength
cutoff filters which are used in many imaging sensors in the field of optical technology. . In medical
physics this window is useful in Blood oxygenation measurements. This window of wavelength
range is also useful in infrared photography

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