JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 22, NO.

12, DECEMBER 2004 2787

Analysis of a Line-Defect Waveguide on

a Silicon-on-Insulator Two-Dimensional
Photonic-Crystal Slab
Yoshinori Tanaka, Takashi Asano, Ranko Hatsuta, and Susumu Noda, Member, IEEE

Abstract—This paper describes the investigation of the wave-

guide properties of a silicon-on-insulator (SOI)-based two-dimen-
sional photonic-crystal slab. It is found that coupling between
transverse-electric (TE)-like defect modes and transverse-mag-
netic (TM)-like slab modes occurs in some frequency range due
to structural asymmetries in the vertical direction. This TE–TM
coupling, together with the smaller refractive-index contrast
between the slab and dielectric cladding, results in propagation
losses for a line-defect waveguide in an SOI structure. The paper
also presents optimization methods for obtaining a wide lossless
propagation band using such a line defect.
Index Terms—Line-defect waveguide, photonic-crystal slab,
propagation loss, silicon-on-insulator, TE–TM coupling.
Fig. 1. Schematic of an SOI 2-D PC-slab waveguide.

I. INTRODUCTION
P HOTONIC CRYSTALS (PC) [1], [2], which have periodic
refractive-index modulations, are a new optical material.
The most characteristic feature of a PC is the existence of
a photonic bandgap (PBG) where photons cannot propagate
into the PC. Artificial defects introduced into PCs can control
the photons with a large degree of freedom. Among various
possible PC structures, the two-dimensional (2-D) PC slab,
which consists of a thin dielectric slab with cladding layers
processed to form a 2-D PC structure, has attracted much
attention. Such structures can be fabricated relatively easily and
can realize strong optical confinement. Photons are controlled
by the PBG effect for the in-plane direction and by the large
refractive-index contrast between the slab and the cladding
layers in the vertical direction. Line defects introduced in a 2-D
PC slab can be utilized as waveguides, and point defects can
be utilized as ultrasmall cavities. Various device applications
such as ultrasmall surface-emitting channel add/drop filters
[3], [4] and other optical circuits have been developed by the
use of defects in 2-D PC slabs.
Careful selection of the cladding material is important for the
utilization of 2-D PC slabs, as the refractive-index contrast de-
termines optical confinement in the vertical direction. When the
slab has air cladding on both sides, strong confinement can be
achieved because of the large refractive-index contrast. In this
case, an air-bridge structure is typically utilized to support the
slab. In addition, a slab having dielectric cladding on one side
and air cladding on the other [5] is also interesting. The mechan-
ical robustness of such structures is improved by the existence of
the supporting dielectric material under the slab, although this
results in weaker optical confinement due to the reduced refrac-
tive-index contrast. It should be noted that a 2-D PC slab on
dielectric cladding exhibits an asymmetric refractive-index dis-
tribution for the vertical direction. To the authors’ knowledge,
there have been no reports specifically discussing vertical asym-
metries of such structures, except for our previous short paper
[6]. In this present paper, detailed consideration is given to the
effects of one-sided cladding on the line-defect waveguides by
employing a typical 2-D PC structure fabricated using a sil-
icon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate.
In Section II, the properties of SOI 2-D slab waveguides is
theoretically discussed, and a new concept, the “TM-slab line,”
is demonstrated. In Section III, the waveguide properties are
investigated experimentally and compared with theoretical re-
sults. Section IV discusses the optimal structure for the realiza-
tion of a wide propagation band in the SOI 2-D PC waveguide.
The findings are summarized in Section V.

Manuscript received October 9, 2003; revised June 2, 2004. This work is sup-
ported in part by CREST, the Japan Science and Technology Corporation, and
II. ANALYSIS OF WAVEGUIDE PROPERTIES
by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan AND THE TM-SLAB LINE
under a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research.
Y. Tanaka, T. Asano, and S. Noda are with the Department of Electronic First, we investigate the properties of a line-defect waveguide
Science and Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto 615-8510, Japan (e-mail: formed in the SOI 2-D PC structure. A schematic of the assumed
ytanaka@qoe.kuee.kyoto-u.ac.jp; snoda@kuee.kyoto-u.ac.jp). SOI 2-D PC structure is given in Fig. 1, showing a triangular lat-
R. Hatsuta is with the R&D Center, TDK Corporation, Chiba 272-8558,
Japan. tice of air holes of lattice constant and radius , formed in an Si
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JLT.2004.833290 slab of thickness on SiO cladding. The line-defect waveguide
0733-8724/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2788
is introduced by removing a row of air holes along the - di-
rection. The width of the waveguide can be modified by shifting
the structure in the vertical direction to the waveguide [5]. The
waveguide width ( ) is defined as the distance between the
centers of the air holes nearest the waveguide (Fig. 1), where
without shifting is defined by .
An unshifted waveguide is typically used in air-bridge PC
slabs. However, such a waveguide is not suitable for SOI 2-D
PC slabs as the existence of the light line of the SiO cladding
[7], where losses due to radiation into the SiO cladding occur,
means that a broad transmission band cannot be obtained. A
method for overcoming this issue was discussed in [5], where
it was shown that a broad transmission band with a single mode
under the SiO light line can be obtained by a reduction in the
width of the waveguide to .
Recently, we have observed that optical coupling between
transverse-electric (TE)-like waveguide modes and trans-
verse-magnetic (TM)-like slab modes occurs in 2-D PC slabs
with truncated-cone air holes. This coupling results from a
breakdown in the orthogonality of the two modes due to the
vertical asymmetry of the structure. Therefore, large propaga-
tion losses occur for the in-plane direction when wave-vector
conservation is satisfied between both modes [6]. As SOI 2-D
PC slabs also have vertical asymmetry, the same optical cou-
pling should occur, which may induce considerable propagation
losses.
We calculated the dispersion relation and propagation loss for
waveguides in an SOI 2-D PC-slab structure using the three-di-
mensional (3-D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method
[7], [8]. The propagation loss was calculated as follows. The
Bloch condition was applied along the direction of propagation,
and absorbing conditions were applied to the boundaries in the
other directions using a perfectly matched layer (PML) [9]. A
waveguide mode was excited, and the quality factor ( ) was es-
timated from the decay rate of the amplitude of the mode field.
The dispersion of waveguide modes was also calculated, and
the group velocity was evaluated from the derivative of the
dispersion curve. As the time needed for propagation along a
length is , the loss factor for propagation is expressed as
, indicating that the propagation loss per unit
length is [10].
We consider a basic structure with , ,
and . The PC slab has a PBG between 0.257
and for the TE-like mode, and does not have PBG
for the TM-like mode, where is the velocity of light in the
vacuum. The calculated dispersion curve and propagation loss
are shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b), respectively. Large propaga-
tion losses exist in the frequency range above the SiO light
line ( ), where losses due to radiation into the
SiO cladding occur. It is also seen in the figures that propa-
gation losses still exist under the SiO light line in certain fre-
quency ranges ( ). Losses as high as
40 dB/mm are observed here, which would be a serious issue
when utilizing long ( 50–100- m) waveguides. The shaded
area in Fig. 2(a) represents the projection of TM-like slab modes
into the waveguide-propagation direction. It is clearly seen in
the figure that propagation losses occur in the frequency range
where the TE-like waveguide mode overlaps with the projection
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 22, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2004
Fig. 2. (a) Dispersion curve of an SOI 2-D PC waveguide with a waveguide
width of (10=16)W . The solid line represents the TE-like waveguide mode,
and the shaded region represents the projection of the TM-like slab modes.
(b) Propagation loss of an SOI 2-D PC-slab waveguide as a function of
frequency. (c) Dispersion curve of a 2-D PC waveguide with SiO claddings
on both sides. (d) Propagation loss of a 2-D PC-slab waveguide with SiO
claddings on both sides as a function of frequency.
of the TM-like slab modes, whereas losses do not occur in fre-
quency ranges where these modes do not overlap.
Fig. 3 shows the electromagnetic fields of the propagating
mode, calculated by the 3-D FDTD method. The frequency is
set at , where the large propagation loss occurs even
under the SiO light line. Fig. 3(a) and (b) shows the distribution
of the vertical components of magnetic field ( ) and electric
field ( ) across the – plane at the center of the PC slab, re-
spectively. It is seen in Fig. 3(a) that the component (the
TE-like mode) is confined within the waveguide and propagates
along it. Meanwhile, Fig. 3(b) indicates that the component
(the TM-like mode), which spreads into the PC slab, exists. As
only the TE-like mode is excited in the calculation, the TM-like
slab mode must have been generated during the propagation of
the TE-like waveguide mode. This TE–TM coupling is due to
the vertical asymmetry of the structure and is identical to the ef-
fects in a PC slab with truncated-cone air holes [6]. The fact that
the propagation loss occurs only in the frequency range where
both modes overlap indicates that energy and wave-vector con-
servation is required for such coupling. Propagation losses can
be avoided by utilizing waveguide modes that do not overlap
with any projection of TM-like slab modes. This discussion in-
dicates that we have to consider a TM-slab line, which is the
low-frequency edge of the projected TM-like slab mode region,
in order to obtain lossless propagation.
Such propagation losses below the SiO light line are unique
to vertically asymmetric structures. Fig. 2(c) and (d) shows the
dispersion diagram and propagation loss calculated for a 2-D
PC slab with SiO claddings on both sides, where , , and
are the same as those of the previous calculation for an SOI
TANAKA et al.: ANALYSIS OF A LINE-DEFECT WAVEGUIDE ON AN SOI 2-D PC SLAB 2789

Fig. 3. Electromagnetic-field distribution across the 2-D PC-slab waveguide

at the center of the slab: (a) H and (b) E .
Fig. 4. (a) SEM image of the fabricated SOI 2-D PC waveguide. (b) Calculated
dispersion curve of fabricated waveguide.
structure. It is seen in the figures that there is no propagation
loss under the SiO light line, demonstrating that a TM-slab line
does not exist in such vertically symmetric structures.

III. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION OF THE TM-SLAB LINE

We have shown in Section II that TE–TM coupling due to the
vertical asymmetry of the structure results in large propagation
losses and that a TM-slab line should be considered for the re-
alization of lossless propagation. To confirm these theoretical
results, we experimentally investigate the transmission spectra
of SOI 2-D PC-slab waveguides.
The structure was fabricated using an SOI substrate, and the
PC patterns were introduced on the Si layer. Electron-beam
lithography and induction-coupling plasma-reactive-ion etching
techniques were utilized for the fabrication. Both edges of the
2-D PC waveguide were cleaved. A scanning electron micro-
scope image of the fabricated sample is shown in Fig. 4(a).
The lattice constant, air-hole radius, waveguide width, and
slab thickness of the fabricated sample were measured to be
0.41 m, , and , respectively. The
waveguide length was 250 m ( ), which was long enough
to investigate the influence of the TE–TM coupling.
The dispersion curve was calculated for the fabricated struc-
ture using the 3-D FDTD method and is shown in Fig. 4(b),
which indicates that the waveguide mode–frequency range
under the TM-slab line is about 23 nm (1547–1570 nm). The
transmission spectrum of a waveguide with the same length Fig. 5. Transmittance spectra of the fabricated sample: (a) calculation result
and (b) experimental result.
as the sample (250 m) was also calculated from the loss
factor and is shown in Fig. 5(a). This clearly illustrates that
process. The oscillations observed in the experimental spectrum
the propagation band is limited by the TM-slab line instead
are Fabry–Pérot interference fringes due to reflections at the
of the SiO light line in waveguides long enough for practical
cleaved facets of the waveguide. The results show that the prop-
applications. The transmittance spectrum for wavelengths
agation band of an SOI 2-D PC waveguide is determined by the
longer than 1570 nm, where no waveguide mode exists, cannot
TM-slab line, not by the clad light line, and clearly indicate the
be calculated directly using these methods; however, the trans-
existence of TE–TM coupling.
mittance should be zero, as incident light cannot couple into
any TE-like waveguide modes.
Next, the transmission spectrum of the waveguide was mea- IV. OPTIMIZATION OF THE STRUCTURE FOR SOI 2-D
sured. Incident light was injected from free space into one facet PC-SLAB WAVEGUIDE
of the waveguide, and light transmitted through the waveguide There are some discussions regarding structural optimization
and emitted from the other facet was measured. The obtained of SOI 2-D PC-slab waveguides, which take into account the
spectrum is plotted in Fig. 5(b), which shows that the width of SiO light line [5]. However, we have shown in Sections II and
the high-transmission band is 24 nm (1528–1552 nm), consis- III that large propagation losses occur on an SOI 2-D PC-slab
tent with the calculated results [Fig. 5(a)], except that the wave- waveguide due to coupling between the TE-like waveguide
guide-mode frequency is shifted to longer wavelengths. This mode and the TM-like slab modes, resulting in a TM-slab line
shift is considered to be due to uncertainty in the fabrication that should be taken into account when designing a line-defect
2790
Fig. 6. Dispersion curves for PC waveguides with slab thicknesses of (a) 0:4, (b) 0:5, and (c) 0:6a.
waveguide in an SOI 2-D PC slab. Further discussions re-
garding the optimal waveguide structure are therefore needed,
with the TM-slab line taken into account. Here, we discuss
optimal structures for a broader lossless propagation band,
where TE-like waveguide modes and TM-like slab modes do
not overlap.
A. Slab Thickness
Firstly, we investigate the relation between the lossless prop-
agation band and slab thickness. Fig. 6 shows the calculated
dispersion of PC-slab waveguides of slab thicknesses , ,
and . The air-hole radius and waveguide width are fixed at
and , respectively. As the slab becomes thin,
the frequencies of both the TE-like waveguide mode and the
TM-like slab modes increase due to the decrease of the equiva-
lent refractive index. As the electric-field intensity of the lowest
order TM-like modes at the slab surface is generally stronger
than that of the lowest order TE-like mode due to the difference
in the boundary condition, the mode frequency of the former
changes more rapidly than that of the latter when the slab thick-
ness is varied. Therefore, the lossless propagation band becomes
broader as the slab narrows, as shown in Fig. 6. It should also
be noted that the lossless propagation bandwidth does not vary
greatly when the slab thicknesses is varied from to
[Fig. 6(a) and (b)]. As the region under the SiO light line be-
comes small in the high-frequency region, a wide propagation
band cannot be obtained for a very thin slab. This suggests that
a slab thickness of – optimizes the width of the lossless
propagation band.
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 22, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2004
B. Waveguide Width
Next, we investigate the relation between the lossless
propagation band and the waveguide width. Fig. 7(a)–(c)
shows calculated dispersion relations for waveguide widths of
, , and , respectively. The air-hole
radius and slab thickness were fixed at and , re-
spectively. The figure shows that the frequency of the TE-like
waveguide mode decreases as the waveguide becomes wider,
whereas the frequency of the slab modes remains constant. As
a result, a broader lossless propagation band can be obtained as
the waveguide becomes wider.
Here, it should be observed that, for the widest ( )
waveguides [Fig. 7(c)], the low-frequency side of the propaga-
tion band does not remain within the PBG. Even in this case,
the mode is considered to show lossless propagation, as there
are no TE-like slab modes that directly overlap with the wave-
guide mode. However, this is likely to become a serious problem
when point-defect resonators and/or waveguide bends are in-
troduced. Therefore, it is important that the waveguide modes
remain within the PBG region when applications to optical cir-
cuits are considered.
C. Radius of Air Holes
Finally, we investigate the relation between the lossless prop-
agation band and the air-hole radius. Fig. 8(a)–(c) shows the
calculated dispersion relations for waveguides with an air-hole
radii of , , and , respectively. The slab thickness
and waveguide width were fixed at and ,
respectively. A decrease in the air-hole radius corresponds to
an increase in the effective refractive index of the slab for the
TANAKA et al.: ANALYSIS OF A LINE-DEFECT WAVEGUIDE ON AN SOI 2-D PC SLAB
Fig. 7. Dispersion curves for PC waveguides with widths of (a) (10=16),
(b) (10:5=16), and (c) (11=16)W .
TE-like waveguide mode and TM-like slab modes, which re-
sults in a decrease in the mode frequencies. As the electric-field
intensity of the lowest order TE-like modes inside the slab is
higher than that of the lowest order TM-like modes, the mode
frequency of the former decreases more rapidly than that of the
latter, leading to a wider lossless propagation band. Moreover,
the decrease in air-hole radius corresponds to an effective
increase in waveguide width, also leading to an increase in the
lossless propagation bandwidth, as shown in Section IV-B.
However, it should be noted that the air-hole radius should be
limited so that there are no waveguide modes outside the PBG,
as discussed previously, because the mode frequency of the
TE-like waveguide mode decreases more rapidly than that of
TE-like slab modes.
D. Optimal Parameters for an SOI 2-D-Slab Waveguide
We have discussed optimization for a wide lossless propa-
gation band in an SOI 2-D PC waveguide. We have discovered
that it is important to increase the frequency of the TM-like
slab mode and decrease that of the waveguide mode for such
optimization. This may be achieved by designing the structure
to have a thin slab, a wide waveguide, and a small air-hole
radius. We also note that the lower frequency side of the
propagation band should not fall outside of the PBG. These
findings have shown that a slab thickness of , a wave-
guide width of , and an air-hole radius of
result in optimization of the lossless propagation bandwidth
of 6 . When is set to 0.42 m so that the PBG
center frequency is 1550 nm, which is an important communi-
cations wavelength, this corresponds to a lossless propagation
bandwidth of approximately 30 nm. In this case, the fabricated
2791
Fig. 8. Dispersion curves for PC waveguides with an air-hole radii of (a) 0:25,
(b) 0:27, and (c) 0:29a.
sample shown in Section III was relatively well optimized,
and a large propagation band was obtained.
V. SUMMARY
This paper discussed an investigation of the properties of line-
defect waveguides in an SOI 2-D PC slab. It has been shown that
optical coupling between TE-like defect modes and TM-like
slab modes occurs due to the vertical asymmetry of the structure,
giving rise to the large propagation loss of line-defect wave-
guides. It has also been shown that such propagation losses can
be avoided in the lower frequency side of the waveguide mode,
where it does not overlap with the TM-like slab modes. The
properties of the waveguide have been investigated experimen-
tally and have been shown to agree with the calculations and to
indicate the existence of propagation losses due to such TE–TM
coupling. It has also been shown that the lossless propagation
band can be as broad as in an optimized struc-
ture, which corresponds to more than 30 nm when the 1550-nm
communication wavelength is assumed. It is hoped that these
SOI PC structures will be applied in practical devices by devel-
oping the results obtained in this paper.
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