Optik 125 (2014) 58335836

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Optik
journal homepage: www.elsevier.de/ijleo

Dense wavelength division demultiplexing using photonic crystal

waveguides based on cavity resonance
Nikhil Deep Gupta , Vijay Janyani 1
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Malviya Nagar, JLN Marg, Jaipur 302017,
Rajasthan, India

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 18 October 2013
Accepted 30 May 2014
Keywords:
Photonic crystal (PhC)
Photonic crystal cavity resonances
Dense wavelength division demultiplexer
(DWDM)
Quality factor
Channel spacing

a b s t r a c t
We demonstrated a photonic crystal waveguide based dense wavelength division multiplexing device
using the resonances in the cavities. The demultiplexing is achieved through ltering. This ltering is
achieved by varying the radii of the surrounding holes of the cavity, which in turn changes the resonant
wavelength of the cavity. The four wavelengths demultiplexed in the design are 0.8 nm apart in the optical
region centered on 1.55 and 1.56 m. The device designed and simulated has easy to realize structure as
well as high quality factor. Two-dimensional Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) is chosen to do the
simulation of this work.
2014 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Photonic crystals (PhC) are considered analogous to the semiconductors, as they allow the control of photons as semiconductors
do for the electrons. PhC are the articial structures having periodic variations in the refractive index of the materials arranged
in a manner to give the structure a shape of a crystal. PhC are
particularly important in the eld of the nanophotonics as they
have the important property of scaling down the size of the structure according to the frequencies in use [14]. Thus, they can be
designed efciently for both microwave as well as for the visible
range region. Some of the most promising applications based on
PhC are waveguides, power splitter, direction couplers, bends etc.
These basic building blocks can be combined to realize complete
circuits with various optical functions within an extremely small
area, give rise to integrated all optical circuit.
One of the most interesting areas of the PhC is optical communication. In optical signal processing, one of the most important
aspects is wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and dense
wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), which allows several
wavelength signals to combine and split and to be transmit and

Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9460216549; fax: +91 0141 2529029.

E-mail addresses: ndg a1@yahoo.co.in (N.D. Gupta), vijayjanyani@gmail.com
(V. Janyani).
1
Tel.: +91 9828025070; fax: +91 0141 2529029.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijleo.2014.07.024
0030-4026/ 2014 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

receive simultaneously. DWDM devices were earlier realized using

thin lm lters, Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBG) etc. But, they are not
suitable for ultra compact incorporation, for that PhC can be considered as the most suitable solution, which can ultimately pave
the path for the all optical circuit.
WDM and DWDM were also earlier realized through PhCs using
radius defects by using variation in band gaps, heterostructure that
use ring resonators, based on the asymmetric super-cell photonic
crystal structures, structure that use several defects to trap arbitrary different wavelengths in a line defect waveguide, tunable
channel lter that is modulated by electro optic in birefringence
materials, and negative refractive index super-prism based lters
etc [513].
One of the methods of realizing the DWDM structure is utilizing the resonant cavity which allows the localization of a particular
resonant state and provides different wavelengths to distinguish
and lter out from one another. Micro cavity is one of the earlier
requirements for which the PhC was developed and very effectively
allows the method to lter out different wavelengths. There is different resonance value of wavelengths for a particular cavity and
it allows the trapping of that wavelength strongly, magnitude of
which can be determined through the quality factor value of that
cavity.
In this paper, we have proposed the new and simple design,
keeping the fabrication in mind, for dense wavelength demultiplexing using rod type 2D PhC having channel spacing equal to 0.8 nm
having bandwidth approximately equal to 0.2 nm. The device is

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N.D. Gupta, V. Janyani / Optik 125 (2014) 58335836

Table 1
Parameters used for the design of the basic rod type PhC structure.
S. No.

Parameter

Value

1
2
3
4
5
6

Background index
Rod index
Index difference
Lattice constant or period (a)
Radius of non defected rods (r)
Width

1.4 (SiO2 )
3.47 (GaAs)
2.07
430 nm
120 nm
2 m

Fig. 2. Band diagram of the proposed structure having radius 120 nm and period
equal to 430 nm, clearly shows two bandgaps.
Table 2
Bandgaps normalized frequency and actual wavelengths.

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the 2D PhC structure used to design the DWDM. An
array of 51*51 rods in a lower refractive index region is used, which are periodic
in xz direction. Gray denotes the background material whereas black denotes the
high refractive index rods.

S. No.

Bandgap

1
2

Bandgap 1
Bandgap 2

Normalized frequency (a/)

0.237040.28804
0.425850.45066

Wavelength (in m)
1.49281.8140
0.95421.0097

capable for wavelength demultiplexing in DWDM applications and

capable to lter out the different wavelengths. We have demultiplexed four wavelengths (which is also capable to support more
channels) by varying the radius of the surrounding cavities which
in turn changes the value of the resonance wavelength. The wavelength values used are in the telecommunication units, which are
1558.9 nm, 1559.7 nm, 1560.6 nm and 1561.3 nm having very high
quality factor (avg. value approx. equal to 7800).
2. Operation and analysis
To analyze the structures like PhC which are periodic in either
one, two or in all three directions numerical methods are required
and some of the most popular methods to study the band diagram
and propagation of electromagnetic waves through the structure
are Plane Wave Expansion (PWE) method and Finite Difference
Time Domain (FDTD) method including some others like scattering matrix method, nite difference method etc. We have used
both PWE and FDTD methods to nd our results. We have used
PWE to nd the dispersion relation of the proposed 2D structure
whereas FDTD method is used to nd the propagation of the electromagnetic waves through the structure. To analyze the structure,
we have used the software tools name BandSOLVE and FullWAVE
provided by RSoft Inc.
The rod type PhC structure designed which forms the basic 2D
structure has the following parameters (Table 1).
Based on the above given values the designed structure looks
like as given below, where we have used the 51*51 array, which
should be large enough to allow different wavelengths required
enough distance so that they dont enter into each other region
(Fig. 1).
Then, the band diagram of the structure is calculated to nd out
the region where we can work by creating defect, either in the form
of waveguide or cavity, in the structure without allowing light to
enter into the region other than required. We have utilized the TE
mode of the 2D structure where electric eld is perpendicular to
the plane of propagation, as in rod type structures TE mode shows
band gaps (whereas in hole type structures there are usually TM

Fig. 3. The proposed structure of the Dense Wavelength Division Demultiplexer

having input from the left and output of the respective wavelengths are through
the right through the respective cavity. Red color denotes 120.2 nm (channel 1),
black denotes 120.0 nm (channel 2), blue denotes 119.7 nm (channel 3) and orange
denotes 119.5 nm (channel 4) radii. (For interpretation of the references to color in
this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

band gap appears). The calculated band diagram shows the two
bandgaps as shown in Fig. 2.
We utilized Bandgap 1 in our design as it lies in the commonly used telecommunication wavelength region for optical
communication as per ITU-T standards around 1.55 m ranges. The
calculated values of bandgaps wavelengths are listed in Table 2 on
which basis we decided to design our cavities.
On the basis of the above calculations, we have proposed a new
design which is capable to select different wavelengths effectively
with required bandwidth and also easy to design and fabricate, as
shown in Fig. 3.
The structure proposed has an input waveguide, a coupling
waveguide, then it is connected to the respective cavity and the
output waveguide. The input waveguide provides input to the four
multiplexed wavelengths from the left as shown in the Fig. 3. The

N.D. Gupta, V. Janyani / Optik 125 (2014) 58335836

5835

Table 3
Values of central wavelengths bandwidth and Q factor.
Channel no.

Cavities adjacent rods radius

Resonant wavelength (r )

Bandwidth ()

Q factor

Channel 1
Channel 2
Channel 3
Channel 4

120.2 nm
120.0 nm
119.7 nm
119.5 nm

1561.3 nm
1560.6 nm
1559.7 nm
1558.9 nm

0.2 nm
0.2 nm
0.2 nm
0.2 nm

7806.5
7803.0
7798.5
7794.5

TE mode light then entered into the coupling region. Both the
input and the coupling waveguides are created by removing the
high index rods to guide light to the desired location. As, the light
launched lies in the region of Bandgap 1 (around 1.55 and 1.56 m),
both these waveguides guide the input wavelengths effectively.
Then, the light is ltered into respective wavelengths by allowing the light to pass through the cavity by creating a point defect in
the structure i.e. by removing a rod. Then, the radii of the adjacent
rods are adjusted accordingly to allow only a particular wavelength
to couple to the cavity, whereas disallowing other wavelengths to
pass through. But, as the wavelengths we are going to demultiplex,
are very close to each other thus we have created another similar
cavity adjacent to the earlier cavity to further lter out the required
wavelength.
The radii used for the rods adjacent to the removed rods,
i.e. point defects are 119.5 nm, 119.7 nm, 120.0 nm and 120.2 nm
and corresponding wavelengths ltered out through these cavity
defects are 1558.9, 1559.7, 1560.6 and 1561.3 nm. The upper most
defects have the adjacent rods radius equal to 120.2 nm and the
subsequent lower cavities have the radii 120.0 nm, 119.7 nm and
119.5 nm respectively. All these cavities are then coupled to the
similar cavities to the right to reduce the crosstalk further, which
are then coupled to the output waveguides to allow to couple to
the other circuit, where the wavelength is required. In the structure shown here, different radii are indicated by different colors
having red denotes 120.2 nm (channel 1), black denotes 120.0 nm
(channel 2), blue denotes 119.7 nm (channel 3) and orange denotes
119.5 nm (channel 4) radii.

Fig. 4. The resultant of the structure designed when four wavelengths are launched
together.

considered the cavitys resonance wavelength. The Q factor is found

out using the formula
Q =

fr
f

(1)

where fr is the resonance or central frequency and f is the bandwidth (also called as full width as half maximum). Using this
formula, we have calculated the Q factor for the various proposed
cavities which gives very high values with about 0.2 nm avg. bandwidth. The avg. value of the Q factor for the proposed structure is
about 7800. The values of resonance wavelengths, together with
bandwidth and their Q factor values are listed in Table 3.

3. Results and their analysis

4. Conclusion
The tool used for the analysis of the structure is FullWAVE provided by RSoft Inc. which is based on the FDTD numerical method.
The structure lies in the xz plane and the light is propagating
in the positive z direction. For simulation, we have to decide the
boundary conditions, and for that we have used Perfectly Matched
Layer (PML) boundary conditions at the boundary of the plane. The
incident light has TE polarization. PML width used to analysis the
structure is 500 nm and grid size used in the x direction is PeriodX/8
which reduced the computation time and memory by considerable
amount without much affecting the results. We have analyzed the
structure with 100,000 time steps which took about 1800 min to
produce the results.
The defects created in the form of cavities have adjacent rods
radii values equal to 119.5 nm, 119.7 nm, 120.0 nm and 120.2 nm
respectively and which provide the output resulted wavelengths of
1558.9, 1559.7, 1560.6 and 1561.3 nm respectively which is as per
requirements, with average bandwidth of about 0.2 nm. Note that
the output wavelength increases with increase in the rod radius
because increasing the rod radius has effect in increasing the effecting refractive index of the structure. The result of the proposed
structure simulation is shown in Fig. 4.
The most important parameter which determines the quality of
a cavity is the quality factor (Q), which determines the ability of
a cavity to localize light for the long time, without allowing it to
dissipate its energy to the outside environment. The value of Q for
a cavity has a maximum value for a particular wavelength, which is

We have proposed a Dense Wavelength Division Demultiplexer

which works well for optical frequencies using Photonic Crystal
Resonant cavity structure. The structure has several advantages like
it has high Q factor, low bandwidth for particular channel and small
size. The average values of bandwidth and Q factor are 0.2 nm and
7800 nm respectively. The device is capable to demultiplex input
TE polarized signal with 0.8 nm channel spacing. The device is also
easy to fabricate, as we have used low refractive index material
(refractive index 1.4) rather then air, as background material and
also the structure design are simple. The only problem with the
structure is that co-channel interference in little bit at higher side
and in the future work, we will try to solve this problem by doing
some effective modications in this simple rather effective design.
The researchers can further modify the structure to incorporate
more wavelengths and thus design also provides the exibility to
increase the number of channels and thus can be very helpful in the
development of all optical circuits.
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