By inserting an air cavity into a one-dimensional photonic crystal of LiF/GaSb, a tunable filter covering the whole visible range is proposed. Following consideration of the dispersion of the materials, through modulating the thickness of the air cavity, we demonstrate that a single resonant peak can shift from 416.1 to 667.3 nm in the band gap at normal incidence by means of the transfer matrix method. The research also shows that the transmittance of the channel can be maximized when the number of periodic Li F/Ga Sb layers on one side of the air defect layer is equal to that of the other side. When adding a period to both sides respectively, the full width at half maximum of the defect mode is reduced by one order of magnitude. This structure will provide a promising approach to fabricate practical tunable filters in the visible region with ultra-wide tuning range.
Xiaodan ZhaoYibiao YangZhihui ChenYuncai WangHongming FeiXiao Deng
We propose a novel two-dimensional photonic crystal structure consisting of two line defect waveguides and a cavity to realize mode conversion based on the coupling effect. The W1/cavity/W2 structure breaks the spatial symmetry and successfully converts the even（odd） mode to the odd（even） mode in the W2 waveguide during the forward（backward）transmission. When considering the incidence of only the even mode, the optical diode effect emerges and achieves approximate 35 d B unidirectionality at the resonant frequency. Moreover, owing to the narrow bandpass feature and the flexibility of the tuning cavity, utilization of the proposed structure as a wavelength filter is demonstrated in a device with a Y-branch splitter. Here, we provide a heuristic design for a mode converter, optical diode, and wavelength filter derived from the coupling effect between a cavity and adjacent waveguides, and expect that the proposed structure can be applied as a building block in future all-optical integrated circuits.
