The collection of articles in this book offers a penetrating shaft into the still burgeoning subject of light propagation and localization in photonic crystals and disordered media. While the subject has its origins in physics, it has broad significance and applicability in disciplines such as engineering, chemistry, mathematics, and medicine. Unlike other branches of physics, where the phenomena under consideration require extreme conditions of temperature, pressure, energy, or isolation from competing effects, the phenomena related to light localization survive under the most ordinary of conditions. This provides the science described in this book with broad applicability and vitality. However, the greatest challenge to the further development of this field is in the reliable and inexpensive synthesis of materials of the required composition, architecture and length scale, where the proper balance between order and disorder is realized.
Similar challenges have been faced and overcome in fields such as semiconductor science and technology. The challenge of photonic crystal synthesis has inspired a variety of novel fabrication protocols such as self-assembly and optical interference lithography that offer much less expensive approaches than conventional semiconductor microlithography.
Once these challenges are fully met, it is likely that light propagation and localization in photonic microstructures will be at the heart of a 21st-century revolution in science and technology.
From the Introduction, Sajeev John, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
One of the first books specifically focused on disorder in photonic structures, Optical Properties of Photonic Structures: Interplay of Order and Disorder explores how both order and disorder provide the key to the different regimes of light transport and to the systematic localization and trapping of light. Collecting contributions from leaders of research activity in the field, the book covers many important directions, methods, and approaches. It describes various one-, two-, and three-dimensional structures, including opals, aperiodic Fibonacci-type photonic structures, photonic amorphous structures, photonic glasses, Lévy glasses, and hypersonic, magnetophotonic, and plasmonic–photonic crystals with nanocavities, quantum dots, and lasing action. The book also addresses practical applications in areas such as optical communications, optical computing, laser surgery, and energy.
Introduction
Part I : Theory
Chapter 1 : Optical Properties of One-Dimensional Disordered Photonic Structures
Chapter 2 : Propagation and Localization of Light in Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystals
Chapter 3 : Modeling the Optical Response of Three-Dimensional Disordered Structures Using the Korringa - Kohn - Rostoker Method
Chapter 4 : Anderson Localization of Light in Layered Dielectric Structures
Chapter 5 : The Disorder Problem for Slow-Light Photonic Crystal Waveguides
Chapter 6 : Quasicrystalline Photonic Structures: Between Order and Disorder
Chapter 7 : Multicomponent Photonic Crystals with Inhomogeneous Scatterers
Part II : Experiment
Chapter 8 : Anderson Localization of Light: Disorder-Induced Linear, Nonlinear, and Quantum Phenomena
Chapter 9 : Optical Spectroscopy of Real Three-Dimensional Self-Assembled Photonic Crystals
Chapter 10 : Photonic Glasses: Fabrication and Optical Properties,
Chapter 11 : Superdiffusion of Light in Lévy Glasses
Chapter 12 : Optical Properties of Low-Contrast Opal-Based Photonic Crystals
Chapter 13 : Light and Small-Angle X-Ray Diffraction from Opal-Like Structures: Transition from Two- to Three-Dimensional Regimes and Effects of Disorder
Chapter 14 : Interplay of Order and Disorder in the High-Energy Optical Response of Three-Dimensional Photonic Crystals
Chapter 15 : Opal-Based Hypersonic Crystals
Part III : Toward Applications
Chapter 16 : Strong Light Confinement by Perturbed Photonic Crystals and Photonic Amorphous Structures
Chapter 17 : Nonlinear Optics in Silicon Photonic Crystal Nanocavities
Chapter 18 : Random Lasing Highlighted by π-Congugated Polymer Films
Chapter 19 : Self-Optimization of Optical Confinement and Lasing Action in Disordered Photonic Crystals
Chapter 20 : Ultrafast All-Optical Switching in Photonic Crystals
Chapter 21 : Resonant Light Scattering in Photonic Devices: Role of Defects
Chapter 22 : Structural Features and Related Optical Responses of Magnetophotonic Crystals
Chapter 23 : Inhomogeneous Hybrid Metal - Dielectric Plasmonic - Photonic Crystals
Chapter 24 : Light Propagation in Photonic Crystals Infiltrated with Fluorescent Quantum Dots or Liquid Crystal: Different Dimensionality Analysis
Index
