Introduction to Photonic Crystals

Photonic crystals (periodic dielectric structures with a lattice constant on the order of the wavelength of light) can have a wide range of properties. For instance, photonic crystals can be designed to be completely reflective within a certain bandwidth, thereby becoming a replacement for metal in accelerator structures such as waveguides and cav-ities. To see whether photonic crystals might find appli-cation in accelerators, and to design potential accelerator structures, we will need reliable computer simulations to predict fields and frequencies and other properties of pho-tonic crystal structures. We propose to build photonic crys-tal structures in the microwave regime and test the validity of computer simulation against experiment. We can then explore more complex issues such as coupling to photonic crystal structures, higher-order mode rejection, and tunable photonic crystals