Engineering the filter response of

photonic crystal microcavity filters

A. S. Jugessur, P. Pottier and R. M. De La Rue
Ultrafast Photonics Collaboration,
Optoelectronics Research Group, Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering,
University of Glasgow ,Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8LT, Scotland, U.K.
a.s.jugessur@elec.gla.ac.uk

Abstract: Compact photonic crystal (PhC) filters will play a vital role in
wavelength division multiplexing applications and they could be the
stepping stones towards the realisation of dense and multifunctional
photonic integrated circuits. Bragg grating concepts are applied to PhC
filters to control their response by introducing suitable phase shifts and
choosing appropriate locations and magnitudes. Moreover, the variation of
the PhC hole size at the input and output regions could offer an extra degree
of freedom in tailoring the filter characteristics. The ability to engineer and
control the filter response of photonic crystal filters is investigated in this
paper.
 2004 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (999.9999) Photonic crystals; (230.3120) Integrated optics devices;
(250.5300) Photonic integrated circuits
______________________________________________________________________________________________
References and links
1. J. S. Foresi, P. R. Villeneuve, J. Ferrera, E.R Thoen, G. Steinmeyer, S. Fan, J. D. Joannopoulos, L. C.
Kimerling, H. I. Smith and E. P. Ippen., “Photonic-bandgap microcavities in optical waveguides,” Nature,
390, 143-145 (1997).
2. T. F. Krauss, B. Vögele, C.R. Stanley and R. M. De La Rue, "Waveguide microcavity based on photonic
microstructures," IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 9, 176-178 (1997).
3. A. S. Jugessur, P. Pottier and R. M. De La Rue, “One-dimensional periodic photonic crystal microcavity
filters with transition mode-matching features, embedded in ridge waveguides,” Electron. Lett. 39, 367-368
(2003).
4. A. S. Jugessur, R. M. De La Rue, P. Pottier and P. Viktorovitch, “One-dimensional photonic crystal
microcavity filter with enhanced transmission” in IPR (Integrated Photonics Research) Proceedings,
IFD2-1, (Optical Society of America,Vancouver 2002)
5. R. Zengerle and O. Leminger, “Phase-Shifted Bragg-Grating Filters with Improved Transmission
characteristics,” J. Lightwave Technol. 13, 2354-2358 (1995).
6. G. Przyrembel, B. Kuhlow and S. Schluter, “Higher Order flat-top transmission waveguide filters in SOI”
in ECOC-IOOC Proceedings, Symposium Tu 1.1.6, Rimini 2003.
7. G. P. Agrawal and S. Radic, “Phase-Shifted Fiber Bragg Gratings and their application for Wavelength
Demultiplexing,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 6, 995-997 (1994 ).

___________________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
Photonic crystal (PhC) devices have received much attention over the past few years, since
they offer the exciting possibilities of creating miniaturised photonic components essential for
dense photonic integrated circuits. One of the crucial PhC devices is the photonic crystal
filter, to be used in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) applications. It has been
demonstrated [1-4] that a defect created by the removal of a single hole in a series of holes
embedded in a ridge waveguide results in a transmission resonator. The same concepts exist
in phase-shifted Bragg grating structures, where a Lorentzian filter response within a
relatively broad base level is obtained for a single phase-shift. However, for many real

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(C) 2004 OSA 5 April 2004 / Vol. 12, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1304
applications this type of response is not ideal. In optical transmission systems, the minimum
pass-band required for modulated signal should be flat within 1 dB or less in order to produce
a nearly rectangular transmission characteristic [5]. Bragg grating concepts have been applied
to PhC filters to control the filter response [5-7]. By appropriate choice of the phase shifts or
microcavity size and their appropriate locations and magnitudes, a significant level of control
over the filter response can be obtained. Variation of PhC hole size in the input and output
regions can give another degree of freedom in engineering the filter response. In this paper,
the design, fabrication and characterisation of such PhC filters with tailored responses are
reported.
2. Theoretical background
It is well known that the transmission behaviour within the stop-band of a transmission filter
such as a compound Bragg filter can be tailored by introducing several phase-shift regions
and also by suitably choosing their locations and magnitudes [5-7]. As shown in Fig. 1, a
series of holes embedded in a ridge waveguide, with two phase-shifts or spacer regions can be
regarded as a compound phase-shifted Bragg grating structure. The length of the grating
sections has a strong influence on the transmission characteristics. For fixed values of the
number of phase shift regions and cavity spacing, a useful parameter for characterising the
filter response is the k value, defined as the ratio of twice the length of the outer grating
section to that of the inner grating, 2Lout/Lin [5].

Spacer regions
PhC hole
Period

Lout Lin
outer inner
grating grating

Fig. 1. Schematic of PhC holes embedded in semiconductor ridge waveguide operating as a

compound PhC microcavity filter.

It is worth noting that this parameter is applicable only to structures with more than one
phase-shift region. In the present work, only doubly-shifted PhC filters are being investigated.
The filter response is strongly dependent on the k value. In principle, for values of k < 1, a
singly-peaked top appears and partial reflection takes place when the normalised transmission
factor is less than 1. For k = 1, complete transmission occurs, with a rounded tip – and, for k >
1, a dip appears in the center of the transmission band. Increasing the k value further, two
clearly separated peaks appear, with transmission characteristics comparable to that of a
single cavity PhC filter. Similar techniques [5] are used in distributed feedback (DFB)
semiconductor lasers to tailor the transmission spectrum to suit specific requirements.
3. Design and simulation results
A 2-D Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method has been used to simulate the
devices. The PhC hole diameter and period were chosen to be 134 nm and 215 nm,
respectively, to give a band-gap wavelength range, for TE polarisation, from 680 nm to 1150

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nm in the AlGaAs/GaAs epitaxial slab waveguide used. As shown in Fig. 1, the PhC holes
are embedded in high lateral index-contrast ridge-waveguides since strong lateral
confinement and efficient coupling of light can be achieved that way [3]. Moreover, PhC
filters in a ridge format could easily be integrated with other photonic devices. The devices
that were simulated are shown schematically in Fig. 2. The device with a single phase-shift is
shown in Fig. 2(a) and the other two device configurations (Figs. 2(b), 2(c)) consist of two
equal phase-shift regions which correspond to a cavity length of 260 nm. This particular
cavity size was chosen to position the wavelength spectrally at approximately 820 nm, which
corresponds to the central wavelength of the tunable Ti-Sapphire laser used in our
measurements. The k values of the devices shown schematically in Figs. 2(b) and 2(c) are 0.8
and 1, respectively.

c c c

= 345 nm

= 560 nm
Lout

Lout
Cavity b b
region a

= 905 nm

= 1120 nm
b
Air holes,
Lin
b

Lin
134 nm in b
diameter
Semiconductor a
channel
waveguide
(a) (b) a = 215 nm (c)
b = 260 nm
Light input c = 260 nm

Fig. 2. Schematic of the PhC filter devices: (a) PhC filter with a single phase shift,
(b) PhC filter with two phase shifts, k = 0.8, (c) PhC filter with two phase shifts, k = 1.

The computed wavelength spectra of the above three devices are shown in Fig. 3. The
spectral response of the device with a single phase-shift shows a Lorentzian shape with a
sharply peaked top, which is not the desirable response for many applications. The spectral
profile of device in Fig. 2(b), which has a k value of 0.8 shows a quasi-flat response - with a
slightly doubly-peaked top with steep edges – and is therefore a significant improvement over
the single cavity filter. The spectral profile of device in Fig. 2(c), which has a k-value of 1,
shows a flatter top response with steeper edges, an improvement over the previous one.
Clearly, the filter responses in the latter two cases have significantly changed in comparison
with the singly-peaked filter response of the device in Fig. 1(a).

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(C) 2004 OSA 5 April 2004 / Vol. 12, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1306
 1.0
PhC filter 2a
PhC filter 2b
PhC filter 2c
0.8

Transmission 0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
760 780 800 820 840 860 880 900
Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 3. Computational spectral responses of devices shown in Figs. 2(a) –(c).

Other PhC filter devices have been designed with several rows of holes, instead of a
single row of holes, in a square lattice configuration (lattice constant = 386 nm, hole diameter
= 304 nm and cavity spacer length of 490 nm) embedded in 3 µm wide ridge-waveguides.
The devices were designed to operate in the 1.5 µm wavelength region. Two phase shifts
were introduced to obtain steeper edges. It was found that on reducing the PhC hole size in
the first and last rows at the input and output regions by 23 % and after numerical
optimisation, the response of the filter could be modified significantly to a quasi-flat top
response. Figures 4(a)-(c) show computational wavelength spectra, with the devices shown
schematically in the inset, for a single cavity, doubly phase-shifted and doubly phase-shifted
with 23 % hole diameter reduction in the outer rows, respectively. By changing the radius of
the PhC holes, we are effectively grading the reflectivity and hence, also, the impedance per
row. Moreover, there is an electromagnetic field redistribution accompanying these changes
and, it thus is a form of apodization. It is also worth noting that the single row of holes
embedded in the narrow wire of finite width (Fig. 2) has a narrow response because of the
lateral modal properties of the wire, whereas, the 2-D array of holes embedded in a wide
ridge (Fig. 4) has properties more like those of an infinitely wide structure. Moreover, the
cavity lengths in the two cases are not directly scaled between the two structures and they
operate at different wavelengths.

#3849 - $15.00 US Received 19 February 2004; revised 22 March 2004; accepted 23 March 2004
(C) 2004 OSA 5 April 2004 / Vol. 12, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1307
 1.0 1.0
(a) (b)

Transmission 0.8 0.8

Transmission
0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0.0 0.0
1400 1425 1450 1475 1500 1525 1550 1450 1475 1500 1525 1550 1575 1600

Wavelength (nm) Wavelength (nm)

1.0
(c)

0.8
Transmission

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
1450 1475 1500 1525 1550 1575 1600 1625 1650

Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 4. Computational transmission spectra of (a) single cavity, (b) two phase-shifts, (c) two phase-shifts
with 23 % hole diameter size reduction.

4. Fabrication and experimental results

The microcavity filters outlined above have been fabricated in an AlGaAs/GaAs epitaxial
structure. The 1-D PhC filters were accessed by deeply etched, 2.0 µm-wide and 2.3 µm-deep
ridge waveguides tapered down to 260 nm. The composition of the epitaxial structure was: a
150 nm Al0.6Ga0.4As top cladding layer, a 320 nm Al0.19Ga0.81As guiding core and a 1.8 µm
Al0.6Ga0.4As lower cladding layer. The pattern was directly written on a 200 nm bilayer of
polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) resist with electron beam lithography at 50 kV and
transferred by reactive ion etching to the intermediate silica mask layer (200 nm) and finally
into the AlGaAs material. The etching conditions were: SiCl4 at a flow rate of 15 sccm and
pressure of 0.733 Pa (5.5 mTorr) at an r.f. power level of 250 W, for 17 min. The fabricated
devices, shown in Fig. 5(a), were characterized by the end-fire coupling technique using a

#3849 - $15.00 US Received 19 February 2004; revised 22 March 2004; accepted 23 March 2004
(C) 2004 OSA 5 April 2004 / Vol. 12, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1308
tunable Ti-Sapphire laser. The etch depth of the PhC holes was measured to be approximately
900 nm.

(a) (b)

Fig. 5. Fabricated devices on AlGaAs/GaAs epitaxial layer: (a) 1-D PhC filter with a k value of 1, (b) several
periods wide, two phase-shifts PhC filter with reduced hole diameter at input and output regions.

The experimental wavelength spectra obtained for the fabricated devices corresponding
to Figs. 2(a)-(c) are shown in Figs. 6-8. The transmission was normalised with respect to an

7 nm

0.05

0.04
Transmission
Normalised

0.03

0.02

0.01

0.00
780 800 820 840 860 880

Wavelength (nm)

Fig. 6. Experimental wavelength spectrum of 1-D PhC filter with a single phase-shift

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 15 nm
0.09

0.08

Transmission
0.07

Normalised
0.06

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.02

0.01

0.00
780 800 820 840 860 880

Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 7. Experimental wavelength spectrum of 1-D PhC filter with two phase shifts, k
value of 0.8.

16.5 nm
0.08

0.07
Transmission

0.06
Normalised

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.02

0.01

0.00
780 800 820 840 860 880

Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 8. Experimental wavelength spectrum of 1-D PhC filter with two phase shifts, k
value of 1.

identical ridge structure without PhC holes. The experimental results are found to be in good
agreement with the 2-D computational results. Although the traces shown in the spectra are
noisy because we are dealing with low signals, there was a high level of reproducibility when
the measurements are repeated. It is also clear that there are interferometric effects such as
multiple cavity behaviour (Fabry-Perot), probably due to other sources of partial reflection
within the device structures.
The measured full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) values, in all three cases, are close
to the theoretical values obtained. Both the spectra given in Figs. 7 and 8 show a moderately
flat response. An improvement in linewidth value and edge steepness is noted in spectrum
Fig. 8 when compared with Fig. 7. Wavelength shifts between 10 and 20 nm around the

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(C) 2004 OSA 5 April 2004 / Vol. 12, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1310
designed 820 nm peak wavelength value are noted from the wavelength spectra in Figs. 7 and
8. These discrepancies are probably due to fabrication errors. In fact, 2-D FDTD simulations
show that a 1 nm change in the cavity length corresponds to an approximately 1.5 nm shift in
the peak transmission wavelength [4].

experimental
1.0
computational

0.9

0.8
Transmission

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

(a) 0.0
1480 1500 1520 1540 1560 1580

Wavelength (nm)

1.0

0.9

0.8
Transmission

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

(b) 0.0
1480 1500 1520 1540 1560 1580 1600 1620

Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 9 Experimental and computational wavelength spectra of 3 µm PhC filter (a) two phase shifts
(b) two phase shifts with 23 % hole diameter size reduction.

The epitaxial composition for the 3 µm wide PhC filters was a 130 nm Al0.6Ga0.4As top
cladding layer, a 500 nm GaAs guiding core and a 1.8 µm Al0.6Ga0.4As lower cladding layer.
The pattern was directly written on a 200 nm bilayer of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA)
resist with electron beam lithography at 50 kV and transferred by reactive ion etching to the

#3849 - $15.00 US Received 19 February 2004; revised 22 March 2004; accepted 23 March 2004
(C) 2004 OSA 5 April 2004 / Vol. 12, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1311
intermediate silica mask layer (200 nm) and finally into the AlGaAs material. The devices
were produced using the following etching conditions: SiCl4 and O2 in the ratio 15:1 sccm,
pressure of 0.733 Pa (5.5 mTorr) at an r.f. power level of 250 W for 20 min.
The fabricated devices shown in Fig. 5(b) were characterised by the end-fire coupling
technique using a 1.5 µm wavelength diode laser. The etch depth of the ridge-waveguides and
the PhC holes were measured to be approximately 2.3 µm and 1µm, respectively. The
experimental spectra of the 3 µm wide PhC filters, given schematically in Figs. 4(b) and 4(c),
are shown in Fig. 9, together with their corresponding computed profiles. The experimental
profiles have been normalised to unity. We do not have the experimental data available to
make an accurate comparison between Fig. 9(a) and Fig. 9(b). But, it should be noted that the
experimental values of Figs. 9(a) and 9(b) without normalisation are within 15 %. The
spectral transmission profile shown in Fig. 9(a) has a similar response to the corresponding
computed profile (see also Fig. 4(b)) and the dip is clearly apparent. Since the entire
computed response of the filter was very broad (more than 60 nm), the tunable laser scanning
range was insufficient to observe the full spectrum in a single structure. The spectral profile
of Fig. 9(b) shows the significant change in the filter response obtained by reducing diameters
of the input and output rows of PhC holes by 23 %. There is also a body-shift of the response
between the experiment and computation in Fig. 9(b), which is probably due to fabrication
errors. Also, the experimental FWHM (82 nm) was found to be broader than the computed
one (56 nm). This difference is probably due to the effect of lower fill-factors on the
bandwidth as compared with the specified fill-factor, which result from fabrication errors. 2-
D FDTD computation results show that a decrease in fill-factor by approximately 6 % results
in an approximately 35 % increase in bandwidth. On the other hand, computed results show
that a 6 % increase of fill-factor changes the bandwidth by less than 6 %. Moreover,
substantial measured transmission in the 1465 nm -1490 nm region is shown in Fig. 9(a). We
believe the reasons for this behaviour are twofold: firstly, the hole depth was possibly not
sufficient, allowing optical transmission within this wavelength range. Secondly, it is quite
probable that some light is coupling to the lower cladding layer. Similar filter responses were
obtained from other nominally identical filters. Nevertheless, we consider these experimental
results to be provisional, since the entire spectral profiles could not be scanned
experimentally with our apparatus to confirm fully the expected filter responses.
5. Conclusions
The tailoring of the filter response of photonic crystal filters can be achieved by applying
Bragg grating concepts. In addition, we have shown that varying the PhC hole size makes it
possible to obtain an extra degree of freedom in controlling the filter characteristics.
Nevertheless, precise tailoring of the response depends a great deal on the achievable
fabrication accuracy, which poses both restrictions and challenges. Compact PhC filters with
tailored responses have been demonstrated and fully developed devices of this type could
become useful for WDM applications in dense integrated photonic circuits.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the financial support of the EPSRC (UK) through the Ultrafast
Photonics Collaboration (UPC).

#3849 - $15.00 US Received 19 February 2004; revised 22 March 2004; accepted 23 March 2004
(C) 2004 OSA 5 April 2004 / Vol. 12, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1312