Terahertz ways switch based on silicon photonic crystals

A compact and integrated terahertz (THz) wave photonic crystal switch is proposed in silicon. The switch operates based on a dynamic shift of the photonic bandgap by using an external applied electric field. The plane wave expansion method and the finite-difference time-domain method are used to verify and analyze the characteristics of the proposed THz wave switch. Numerical simulation results show that the THz wave switch has a high extinction ratio of 29.9 dB. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.