Tight-binding photonic bands in metallophotonic waveguide networks and flat bands in kagome lattices

We propose that we can realize tight-binding photonic bands in metallophotonic waveguide networks, where the photonic bound states localized around the crossings of a network form a tight-binding band. The formation of bound states at the crossings is distinct from the conventional bound states at defects or virtual bound states in photonic crystals, but comes from a photonic counterpart of the zero-point states in wave mechanics. Model calculations show that the low-lying photon dispersions are indeed described accurately by the tight-binding model. To exemplify how we can exploit the tight-binding analogy for designing of photonic bands, we propose a flat photonic band in the kagome network, in which the photonic flat band is shown to arise with group velocities that can be as small as 1/1000 times the velocity of light in vacuum.