Zero phase delay in negative-refractive-index photonic crystal superlattices

We show that optical beams propagating in path-averaged zero-index photonic crystal superlattices can have zero phase delay. The nanofabricated superlattices consist of alternating stacks of negative index photonic crystals and positive index homogeneous dielectric media, where the phase differences corresponding to consecutive primary unit cells are measured with integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometers. These measurements demonstrate that at path-averaged zero-index frequencies the phase accumulation remains constant and equal to zero despite the increase in the physical path length. We further demonstrate experimentally that these superlattice zero-(n) over bar bandgaps remain invariant to geometrical changes of the photonic structure and have a center frequency which is deterministically tunable. The properties of the zero-(n) over bar gap frequencies, optical phase, and effective refractive indices are well described by detailed experimental measurements, rigorous theoretical analysis, and comprehensive numerical simulations.