Opal-Based Photonic Crystal Heterostructures

A. Chiappini, C. Armellini, N. Bazzanella, G. C. Righini, M. Ferrari

Centro Fermi, Piazza del Viminale, Roma, Italy.
CNR-IFN, CSMFO Lab., Via alla Cascata, Povo, Trento, Italy.
Dip. di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Trento, Via Sommarive, Povo, Trento, Italy.

DOI: 10.4236/opj.2012.223031                

Abstract

The fabrication of photonic crystal heterostructures is important for the applications in the fields of integrated photonic crystal chips and multi-frequency optical Bragg filters or mirrors; here we report on the fabrication and characterization of opal-based photonic crystal heterostructures. These heterostructures are created by using multilayer deposition of silica and polystyrene spheres. In the specific the fabricated structures involved both different lattice constant and dielectric function. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and VIS-NIR transmittance and reflectance spectroscopy are used to characterize the systems. The SEM images show good ordering of the two-layer colloidal crystals constituting the heterostructures. The transmittance and reflectance spectra measured from the (111) plane of the heterostructure show that the composite colloidal photonic crystals have double photonic stop bands that matches the stop bands of the individual photonic crystals. This behaviour can be seen as a superposition of the properties of each individual layer.

Keywords

Sol-Gel; Colloidal Crystals; Optical Properties; Heterostructures

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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