Three-dimensional horizontal circular spiral photonic crystals with stop gaps below 1 μm

Three-dimensional photonic crystals with a circular spiral architecture were fabricated by direct laser writing (DLW) in a photoresist. DLW was performed with a laser beam having the direction of propagation and elongation of the ellipsoidal focal region perpendicular to the spirals' orientation. This allowed the reduction of the turning period of the spirals while avoiding the overlap between their adjacent turns. Consequently, optical transmission and reflection spectra of the fabricated samples revealed multiple photonic stop gaps whose shortest wavelength was 0.88 mu m, the lowest observed so far in spiral structures. These results were qualitatively reproduced by finite-difference time-domain simulations. This fabrication scheme can be useful for DLW of structures where photonic stop gaps along particular directions, rather than complete photonic band gaps, are required. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.