Abstract

Photonic band-gap (PBG)^1–2 structures have been intensively investigated in recent years in connection with a broad variety of applications, including the control of spontaneous emission,³ low-threshold optical limiting and switching,⁴ creation of compact tunable optical delay lines,⁵ etc. As highlighted in classical papers," PBG structures provide an opportunity to control the group and phase velocity of light pulses whose frequencies lie near the edge of the relevant band gap. However, investigations of pulse propagation in PBG structures have been mainly restricted to picosecond pulses, allowing various modifications of slowly varying envelope approximation (SVEA) to be applied. To analyze the propagation of ultrashort (femtosecond-scale) pulses in PBG structures and to reveal ultimate pulse durations that can be achieved with PBG structures, one has to abandon SVEA and to employ an adequate numerical scheme.

© 1999 Optical Society of America