Design of photonic band gap structures through a dual-beam multiple exposure technique

We present a dual-beam multiple exposure technique that can generate complex 2-D and 3-D band gap template structures in a photosensitive material. The system parameters related to the planar interference pattern produced by two laser beams and reorientation effect of the sample relative to these planes is presented. Structures such as the 2-D, square and hexagonal arrays of dielectric “rods” and “holes” and the 3-D, cubic, Yablonovite and other profiles are given. We perform band gap calculations on these structures when the dielectric contrast has been increased using a backfill process and discuss techniques for increasing the band gap by sculpting the dielectric profile.