Abstract

Recently three-dimensional periodic dielectric structures with typical length scale matching the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation in the microwave and optical part of the spectrum have attracted much attention. These structures resemble the properties of electrons in a periodic solid-state lattice and many ideas in such photonic crystals exploit the theoretical methods and concepts of solid-state physics that were developed over many decades.¹ It was soon realized that to understand the transport properties of light in three-dimensional dielectric structures a scalar approximation of the Maxwell equations is not sufficient and that the analysis should include the polarization properties of the electromagnetic field as well as the spatial dependence of the dielectric constants.

© 1994 IEEE