Abstract

A triangular lattice of air rods was fabricated for spectroscopic studies of photonic band structures in the infrared regime. The samples are composed of hollow rods embedded in a dielectric made from a PbO glass. Their physical size is about 1 mm in diameter and 1 mm in height. Two samples have been examined; one' has a lattice constant of 1.3 pm and a filling fraction is 0.54, and the other has a lattice constant of 1.02 pm and a filling factor of 0.43. To our knowledge, these are the smallest dielectric lattices whose hand structure has been characterized to date. The dielectric contrast is 2.62, which has sufficient dispersion to create gaps in the photonic band spectra.

© 1995 Optical Society of America