Low Loss and Slow Light Photonic Crystal Waveguides in SOI

Photonic crystal waveguides have evolved from an academic curiosity to an area where practical applications are beginning to appear feasible. Waveguides consisting of a single line of missing holes ("W1") have become the benchmark to assess fabrication quality, and losses of order 10 dB/cm and below are now possible. We discuss fabrication aspects of such waveguides, made both by e-beam and by deep UV lithography, and highlight some of the key requirements for low loss operation. While these results are very encouraging, true functionality arises from the exploitation of dispersive effects, especially operation in the "slow wave" regime. Novel designs enabling non-dispersive slow wave operation with considerable bandwidth are discussed