title: Diminished normal reflectivity of one-dimensional photonic crystals due to dielectric interfacial roughness.
abstract: Dielectric reflectors that are periodic in one dimension, also known as one-dimensional photonic crystals (1DPCs), have become extremely useful tools in the optics industry due to the presence of wavelength-tunable photonic bandgaps. However, little is known about the practical effects of manufacturing defects, such as interfacial roughness, on this technologically useful property of 1DPCs. We employ a finite-difference time-domain code to gain further insight into the effect of interfacial roughness on the reflectivity of quarter-wave-tuned 1DPCs in the center of the bandgap at normal incidence. This provides an estimate of the magnitude of the effect of the roughness for even the most-robust incidence conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. karlene@mit.edu
authors.forename: Karlene Rosera
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Maskaly
authors.forename: Garry R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Maskaly
authors.forename: W Craig
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Carter
authors.forename: James L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Maxwell