Effect of disorder on slow light velocity in optical slow-wave structures

Slow-wave optical structures such as coupled photonic crystal cavities, coupled microresonators, and similar coupled-resonator optical waveguides are being proposed for slowing light because of the nature of their dispersion relationship. Since the group velocity becomes small, slow light and enhanced light-matter interaction may be observed at the edges of the waveguiding band. We derive a model of the effects of disorder on slow light in such structures, obtaining a relationship between the root-mean-square variation in the coupling coefficients and how slow the light is at the band edge. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.