The influence of fabrication deviations on the photonic band gap of three-dimensional inverse woodpile nanostructures

The effects of unintended deviations from ideal inverse woodpile photonic crystals on the photonic band gap are discussed. Such deviations occur during the nanofabrication of the crystal. By computational analyses it is shown that the band gap of this type of crystal is robust to most types of deviations that relate to the radii, position, and angular alignment of the pores. However, the photonic band gap is very sensitive to tapering of the pores, i.e., conically shaped pores instead of cylindrical pores. To obtain three-dimensional inverse woodpile photonic crystals with a large volume, our work shows that with modern fabrication performances, reduction in tapering contributes most significantly to a high photonic strength. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3103777]