Development of photonic crystal structures for on-board optical communication

We present designs for sharp bends in polymer waveguides using colloidal photonic crystal (PhC) structures. Both silica (SiO2) sphere based colloidal PhC and core-shell colloidal PhC structures having a titania (TiO 2) core inside silica (SiO2) shells are simulated. The simulation results show that core-shell Face Centered Cubic (FCC) colloidal crystals have a sufficient refractive index contrast to open up a bandgap in the desired direction when integrated into polymer waveguides and can achieve reflection >70% for the appropriate plane. Different crystal planes of the FCC structure are investigated for their reflection and compared with the calculated bandstructure. Different techniques for fabrication of PhC on rectangular seed layers namely slow sedimentation; spin coating and modified doctor blading are discussed and investigated. FCC and Random FCC silica structures are characterized optically to show realisation of (001) FCC. © 2014 SPIE