Microcavities in polymeric photonic crystals

We report the fabrication and characteristics of planar microcavities in a log-pile photonic crystal structure formed using light-induced photopolymerization of resin. A planar defect was introduced into the middle of the log-pile structure as a single layer with every second rod missing. The existence of confined cavity states was confirmed experimentally and by numeric simulations. The cavity resonance found at the midgap wavelength lambda (M)similar to4.0 mum had a quality factor of about 130. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.