Study on temperature property of band structures in one-dimensional photonic crystals

Using transfer matrix method, the optical transmission properties in one-dimensional (1-D) photonic crystal is analyzed. When the temperature varies, not only the refractive index of the optical medium is changed because of the thermo-optical effect, but also the thickness of the optical medium is changed due to the thermal-expansion effect. Thus, the structure of 1/4 wave-plate stack in original photonic crystal is destroyed and the band structure varies. In this work, the effects of the temperature variation on the first and second band gap in a 1-D photonic crystal are analyzed in detail. It is found that the changes of the starting wavelength, the cut-off wavelength and the forbidden band width depend linearly on the temperature. © 2007 Tianjin University of Technology.