Properties of surface modes used for directional emission from photonic crystal waveguides

Abstract

Directional emission of light exiting a photonic crystal waveguide by a coherent action of radiative surface modes was recently demonstrated, and subsequently the substantial enhancement of the directional emission was achieved by engineering the surface and adjusting relevant parameters. Here we present the analysis of surface modes causing the enhanced emission by the plane wave expansion method and the finite-difference time-domain method. In particular, surface band structures are calculated for nonradiative and radiative surface modes, respectively, and intensity profiles of some representative modes for nonradiative and radiative cases are given.