Strong angular dispersion using higher bands of planar silicon photonic crystals

© 2008 Optical Society of AmericaThe definitive version of this paper is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.16.014213DOI: 10.1364/OE.16.014213We present experimental evidence for strong angular dispersion in a planar photonic crystal (PC) structure by properly engineering the modes in the second PC band. We show that by using the second photonic band of a square lattice PC, angular dispersion of 4°/nm can be achieved. We also show that major challenges in designing practical PC devices using second band modes can be addressed by engineering the lattice and adding input/output buffer stages designed to eliminate unwanted effects