Antiresonant reflecting photonic crystal optical waveguides

Abstract

We propose a simple analytical theory for low-index core photonic bandgap optical waveguides based on an antiresonant reflecting guidance mechanism. We identify a new regime of guidance in which the spectral properties of these structures are largely determined by the thickness of the high-index layers and the refractive-index contrast and are not particularly sensitive to the period of the cladding layers. The attenuation properties are controlled by the number of high/low-index cladding layers. Numerical simulations with the beam propagation method confirm the predictions of the analytical model. We discuss the implications of the results for photonic bandgap fibers.