Three-dimensional function photonic crystals

In this paper, the properties of the photonic band gaps (PBGs) of three-dimensional (3D) function photonic crystals (PCs) are theoretically investigated by a modified plane wave expansion (PWE) method, whose equations for computations are deduced. The configuration of 3D function PCs is the dielectric spheres inserted in the air background with simple-cubic (SC) lattices whose dielectric constants are the functions of space coordinates, which can be realized by the electro-optical or optical Kerr effect in the practice. The influences of the parameter for 3D function PCs on the PBGs also are discussed. The calculated results show that the bandwidths and number of PBGs can be tuned with different distributions of function dielectrics. Compared with the conventional 3D dielectric PCs with SC lattices, the larger and more PBGs can be obtained in the 3D function PCs. Those results provide a new way to design the novel practical devices.