Widely tunable resonant cavity enhanced detectors built around photonic crystals

Abstract

We report a resonant cavity enhanced (RCE) detector built around a three-dimensional photonic band gap crystal. We have demonstrated the resonant cavity enhanced (RCE) effect by placing microwave detectors in defect structures built around dielectric and metallic based photonic crystals. We measured a power enhancement factor of 3450 for planar cavity structures built around dielectric based photonic crystals. The tuning bandwidth of the RCE detector extends from 10.5 to 12.8 GHz. We also demonstrated the RCE effect in cavities built around metallic structures. The power enhancement for the EM wave within these defect structures were measured to be around 190. These measurements show that detectors embedded inside photonic crystals can be used as frequency selective RCE detectors with increased sensitivity and efficiency when compared to conventional detectors.