Modeling and optimization of optical microcavity clusters and photonic crystal defect cavities

Fast and highly accurate method based on the Muller contour integral equations and a spectral Galerkin discretization technique is presented for spectral design and optimization of whispering-gallery (WG) mode microdisk resonator clusters and photonic crystal (PC) defect cavities. WG-mode photonic molecules and photonic crystal defect cavity configurations with high quality factors and directional emission patterns are designed by tailoring cavity shapes, inter-cavity coupling distances, defect geometries, etc. It is shown that highly directional emission can be achieved in complex non-symmetrical photonic molecules, and ways to remove the degeneracy (or near-degeneracy) of PC cavity modes and photonic molecule modes are discussed.