Modelling of photonic wire Bragg gratings

Abstract. Some important properties of photonic wire Bragg grating structures have been investigated. The design, obtained as a generalisation of the full-width gap grating, has been modelled using 3D finite-difference time-domain simulations. Different types of stop-band have been observed. The impact of the grating geometry on the lowest order (longest wavelength) stop-band has been investigated – and has identified deeply indented configurations where reduction of the stop-bandwidth and of the reflec-tivity occurred. Our computational results have been substantially validated by an experimental demon-stration of the fundamental stop-band of photonic wire Bragg gratings fabricated on silicon-on-insulator material. The accuracy of two distinct 2D computational models based on the effective index method has also been studied – because of their inherently much greater rapidity and consequent utility for approximate initial designs. A 2D plan-view model has been found to reproduce a large part of the essential features of the spectral response of full 3D models. Key words: finite-difference time-domain, optical waveguide modelling, photonic crystal, photonic wire, silicon on insulator, waveguide gratin