Photonic crystal waveguides with semi-slow light and tailored dispersion properties

We demonstrate a concept for tailoring the group velocity and dispersion properties for light propagating in a planar photonic crystal waveguide. By perturbing the holes adjacent to the waveguide core it is possible to increase the useful bandwidth below the light-line and obtain a photonic crystal waveguide with either vanishing, positive, or negative group velocity dispersion and semi-slow light. We realize experimentally a silicon-on-insulator photonic crystal waveguide having nearly constant group velocity similar to c(0)/34 in an 11-nm bandwidth below the silica-line. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America