Effects of fluctuation in air hole radii and positions on optical characteristics in photonic crystal heterostructure nanocavities

We investigate the influence of the nanometer-scale variations in the radii and positions of air holes on the optical characteristics for photonic crystal heterostructure nanocavities. The change in the quality factor, the resonant wavelength, the near-field image, and the polarization property are examined using three-dimensional finite difference time domain calculation with random fluctuation patterns. The variations with a standard deviation as small as 1 nm have a clear effect on these optical characteristics, whose magnitudes are strongly dependent on the fluctuation patterns. To prevent this deterioration, the accuracy of the 50 air holes nearest to the nanocavity is the most important.