Light-opals interaction modeling by direct numerical solution of Maxwell's equations.
This work describes a 3-D Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) computational approach for the optical characterization of an opal photonic crystal. To fully validate the approach we compare the computed transmittance of a crystal model with the transmittance of an actual crystal sample, as measured over the 400 ÷ 750 nm wavelength range. The opal photonic crystal considered has a face-centered cubic (FCC) lattice structure of spherical particles made of polystyrene (a non-absorptive material with constant relative dielectric permittivity). Light-matter interaction is described by numerically solving Maxwell's equations via a parallelized FDTD code. Periodic boundary conditions (PBCs) at the outer edges of the crystal are used to effectively enforce an infinite lateral extension of the sample. A method to study the propagating Bloch modes inside the crystal bulk is also proposed, which allows the reconstruction of the ω-k dispersion curve for k sweeping discretely the Brillouin zone of the crystal.
Alessandro
A
Vaccari
Antonino Calà
AC
Lesina
Luca
L
Cristoforetti
Andrea
A
Chiappini
Luigi
L
Crema
Lucia
L
Calliari
Lora
L
Ramunno
Pierre
P
Berini
Maurizio
M
Ferrari