Analysis of strategies to improve the directionality of square lattice band-edge photonic crystal structures

Recently, photonic crystal band-edge structures have been analyzed in the literature. However, most devices that have been presented so far emit light in different directions. We present a modal analysis (no gain included) of a few schemes to improve the directionality of these devices, i.e., in such a way that light that exits from them will travel mainly in a certain direction, eventually coupling its energy to a wide waveguide.