Enhancement of omnidirectional photonic band gaps in one-dimensional dielectric plasma photonic crystals with a matching layer

In this paper, we demonstrate by theoretical analysis a novel way to enhance the omnidirectional photonic band gap (OBG) in a type of photonic structure made of dielectric and plasma one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystals (1D PCs) by introducing a matching layer. Simulations by the transfer matrix method (TMM) show that such an OBG is insensitive to the incident angle and the polarization of electromagnetic (EM) wave; the frequency range and central frequency of OBG are significantly enlarged by introducing a matching layer in the heterostructure compared to 1D conventional binary dielectric photonic crystals (DPCs). The photonic band gap (PBG) of both polarizations also can be obviously enlarged as the incident angle is relatively small. The OBG originates from a Bragg gap in contrast to zero h gap or single negative (negative permeability or negative permeability) gap. From the numerical results, it has been shown that introducing a matching layer in such a heterostructure has a superior feature in the enhancement relative bandwidth of OBG compared with the conventional ternary plasma photonic crystals (PPCs); the frequency range of OBG can be notably enlarged by increasing the thickness and density of plasma layer. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3680628]