Review and analysis of photonic crystal beam splitters for optical communication applications

In this paper, review and analysis of photonic crystal beam splitter is done for optical communication applications. Based on the study of different beam splitters, the performance of two dimensional (2-D) photonic crystal (PhC) 1×8 beam splitter is discussed. By using directional coupler and Y-junction, nearly equal output power at all the output ports of 1×8 beam splitter is achieved. This uniform splitting has been achieved on the both sides of input waveguide due to the symmetry of the structure. The finite difference time domain (FDTD) method is used to simulate and analyze the splitting properties of the beam splitter. The photonic band gap (PBG) has been calculated by utilizing plane wave expansion (PWE) method. The rods are elliptical in shape. The number of rods are 41 and 26 in the x and z directions respectively. The size of this splitter is around 363 μm². Therefore, it is ultra-compact component and it may be useful in optical communication applications and photonic integrated circuits.