Novel designs for integrating YIG/air photonic Crystal slab polarizers with waveguide Faraday rotators

Photonic crystal slab waveguides (PCSWs), based on the novel magnetooptic material, yttrium iron garnet (YIG), have been designed in order to enable fully integrated optical isolators. The PCSWs possess fundamental bandgaps for even (transverse-electric (TE)-like) modes around the wavelength of 1.33 μm. Propagation losses for both the TE-like and transverse-magnetic (TM)-like polarizations with various orientations have been investigated numerically using partial-wave analysis and a three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method. The resulting PCSW designs can be used to isolate TE-like modes from TM-like modes and vice versa with isolation ratios of -60 and -40 dB, respectively. One of the main benefits of these designs is that they provide interface-free polarizers for the garnet waveguides. The designs can easily be extended to 1.55 μm for further versatility.