Analyzing two-dimensional tunable photonic crystal waveguides for communication band optical filter applications

A two-dimensional photonic crystal waveguide with thermally tunable photonic bandgap is proposed. The tunability of the photonic bandgap is achieved by the temperature dependence of the refractive index of the slab. A hexagonal lattice with a lattice shift is used as a two-dimensional photonic crystal waveguide. The shift of the innermost rows just adjacent to the waveguide resulted with a larger bandgap. To study the temperature dependence of PBG, the refractive index variations are considered over the temperature range of 100–400 K. The bandgap is controlled by the temperature of the slab, and the photonic bandgap values ranging from 24 to 58 nm are achieved. The work is extended in the communication bands including O-band, E-band, S-band, C-band and L-band. The simulations are performed in MIT Photonic Bands software. Thermally tunable optical filters, wavelength routers, optical interconnectors and temperature sensors can be realized from these results.