Experimental demonstration of highly confined photonic crystal based waveguides

Summary form only given. There is great deal of interest in developing photonic crystal based waveguides where one can confine and efficiently guide the light around sharp corners. Guiding the light without losses, and even through sharp corners was observed in two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystals. However, to avoid the leakage problem in 2D structures, either one has to extend the size of the photonic crystal in the vertical direction, or use a strong index-guiding mechanism in the vertical direction. A way to eliminate the leakage is to use a three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystal. Here, we demonstrate the guiding and bending of EM waves in highly confined waveguides which were constructed by removing a single rod from a perfect 3D layer-by-layer photonic crystal.