APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS VOLUME 75, NUMBER 7 16 AUGUST 1999

Optical properties of three-dimensional photonic crystals based

on III–V semiconductors at infrared to near-infrared wavelengths
Susumu Noda,a) Noritsugu Yamamoto, Hideaki Kobayashi, Makoto Okano,
and Katsuhiro Tomoda
Department of Electronic Science and Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
共Received 22 March 1999; accepted for publication 23 June 1999兲
The optical properties of three-dimensional photonic crystals based on III–V semiconductors are
investigated. The crystals are constructed by stacking GaAs 共or InP兲 stripes with a wafer-fusion
technique to form an asymmetric face-centered-cubic structure. It is shown that a crystal with
eight-stacked layers 共two units兲, whose period is 4 ␮m, has a considerable band-gap effect 共⬃30 dB
attenuation兲 in the transmission spectrum at infrared wavelengths 共5–10 ␮m兲, and the band gap is
observed independently of the incident angles. Then, a crystal with four-stacked layers with a
submicron period is constructed, and a clear band gap 共attenuation up to 10 dB兲 is successfully
observed at near-infrared wavelengths 共1–1.5 ␮m兲. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.
关S0003-6951共99兲03833-4兴

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Photonic crystals1–4 are materials in which the refractive 1共a兲, where GaAs 共or InP兲 stripes are stacked by the wafer
index changes periodically and have a band structure for the fusion to form an a-fcc structure. The detailed fabrication
photon energy analogously to that in a solid-state crystal. By procedure is shown in Refs. 9 and 10. The four-stacked lay-
utilizing the photonic band gap and artificially introduced ers correspond to one unit of the structure, and it is theoreti-
defect states and light emitters, scientific and engineering cally confirmed that this structure has a complete photonic
applications are expected such as the complete control of band gap for all wave vectors.11 The important point in the
spontaneous emission, zero-threshold laser, and very com- construction of photonic crystal is to make a precise align-
pact two- and three-dimensional 共2D and 3D兲 optical cir- ment between the first and third stripes 共and between the
cuits. second and fourth stripes兲 关see Fig. 1共a兲兴, where individual
Currently, one of the most important issues in the pho- stripes should be shifted by a half period to construct the
tonic crystal field is to construct a three-dimensional photo- a-fcc structure. The alignment is performed by observing an
nic crystal with a complete photonic band gap in optical intensity change of the diffraction spots of a laser beam in-
wavelengths, and various efforts have been made for the pur- cident normally on the stacked stripes, where the ⫾1 first-
pose. Lin et al. recently reported poly-silicon-based photonic order diffraction spots become minimal when the relative
crystals, where a layer-by-layer5,6 surface micromachining
technique has been adopted, and the photonic band gap in
infrared to near-infrared wavelengths have been
demonstrated.7 However, the drawback is that the silicon is
indirect, and the light-emitting capability is much lower than
that of the III–V semiconductors such as GaAs and InP. It
makes it difficult to apply the crystals to an active photonic
device in which an efficient light emitter is incorporated. The
realization methods of III–V-based photonic crystals have
been proposed by Arbet-Engels et al.8 and by the authors9,10
in different ways. Arbet-Engels et al. proposed utilizing a
three-axis dry-etching of GaAs for the construction of a
diamond-like structure, but until now the clear and consider-
able attenuation of the transmitted light has not been reported
at band-gap wavelengths due to the inhomogeneous crystal
structure constructed. On the other hand, the authors pro-
posed and investigated the utilization of a wafer-fusion tech-
nique to stack the III–V semiconductor stripes to form an
asymmetric face-centered-cubic (a-fcc) structure. We report
here the optical properties of the photonic crystals con-
structed as such. It is shown that considerable band-gap ef- FIG. 1. 共a兲 Schematic structure of the 3D photonic crystal constructed in
fects are observed in infrared to near-infrared wavelengths. this work. GaAs 共or InP兲 stripes are stacked by a wafer-fusion and laser-
The photonic crystal is constructed as shown in Fig. beam-assisted precise alignment technique. Four-stacked stripes correspond
to one unit of an asymmetric face-centered-cubic (a-fcc) structure. 共b兲 Top
view of the crystal with four-stacked layers, where the stripe period, width,
a兲
Electronic mail address: [email protected] and depth are 4, 1, and 1.2, ␮m, respectively.

0003-6951/99/75(7)/905/3/$15.00 905 © 1999 American Institute of Physics

906 Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 75, No. 7, 16 August 1999 Noda et al.

FIG. 3. 共a兲 Top view of the two-stacked layers of InP with a submicron
period. 共b兲 Cross-sectional view of the aligned parallel stripes. The align-
ment accuracy was estimated to be within 50 nm, and in this case, the
band-gap width can be theoretically estimated to be as large as 100 meV.

ization with the band gap. It is also noteworthy that the band

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edges become very clear and sharp in the case of the eight-
stacked structure.
The angular dependence of the transmission spectrum
was also investigated. The sample was rotated as shown in
Fig. 1共b兲 to let the incident direction change from the 具001典
toward the 具110典 direction, which corresponds to the change
in the Brillouin zone from ⌫-X ⬘ toward ⌫-K. From the the-
oretical calculation, it is found that the band-gap width be-
comes almost minimal when the incident light direction ap-
proaches to ⌫-K. The experimental results are shown in Fig.
2共b兲. Attenuation of more than 20 dB 共99%兲 is clearly seen at
around 6.5–9 ␮m for various incident angles. From the com-
parison between the experimental result and the dispersion
FIG. 2. 共a兲 Transmission spectra of the crystals with four- and eight-stacked characteristics of the crystal calculated theoretically, it was
layers. 共b兲 Angular dependence of the transmission spectrum of the photonic found that the result of Fig. 2共b兲 almost indicates that the
crystal with an eight-stacked-layer structure. Rotational configuration of the crystal has a complete photonic band gap. The details will be
sample is shown in Fig. 1共b兲.
reported elsewhere.15 It is also seen that a dip appears at the
band edge of the longer-wavelength side 共⬃9.2 ␮m兲 when
position between the parallel stripes is shifted by just half a the incident angle increases. This shows the degenerate first
period.12 and second bands at the ⌫-X ⬘ point 共具001典 propagation di-
The photonic crystals in infrared 共5–10 ␮m兲 wave- rection兲 split when the incident angle increases and the inci-
lengths were first created by using GaAs, where the struc- dent light direction changes from 具001典 to 具110典.
tures with four- and eight-stacked layers were constructed. Since it has been shown that the photonic crystal con-
Figure 1共b兲 shows the top view of the crystal with four- structed as such operates as a complete photonic band-gap
stacked layers, where the stripe period, width, and depth are material at infrared wavelengths, we next constructed the
4, 1, and 1.2 ␮m, respectively. It is seen that the individual
stripe layers are well positioned. The transmission spectra of
the crystals were measured with a system composed of a
Globar lamp, a monochromator, and a HgCdTe detector. The
measurement results are shown in Fig. 2共a兲, where the light
is incident normally on the sample surface 共具001典 direction兲.
It was confirmed that the results have no polarization depen-
dence. A strong transmittance dip is clearly seen in the 5.5–9
␮m wavelength region, which indicates the formation of a
band gap in the 3D photonic crystal. The magnitudes of the
attenuation are significantly large, and are ⬃15 and ⬃30 dB
for the four- and eight-stacked-layer structures, respectively.
These attenuation magnitudes are well coincident with the
theoretical results calculated by the transfer matrix
FIG. 4. Transmission spectrum of the photonic crystal with four-stacked
theory.13,14 The 30 dB attenuation corresponds to the 99.9% layers. Clear attenuation is seen in the 1–1.5 ␮m wavelength region, and the
reflection and is considered enough for strong photon local- maximum attenuation is ⬃10 dB 共87%兲.
Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 75, No. 7, 16 August 1999 Noda et al. 907

photonic crystal in near-infrared wavelengths 共1–2 ␮m兲. The attenuation of more than 20 dB has been maintained. Then, a
material system was changed from GaAs to InP since InP is crystal in the near-infrared wavelengths has been con-
widely utilized for optoelectronic devices in the optical com- structed, and attenuation up to 10 dB has been demonstrated
munication field. The important issue in this case is that the with the four-stacked-stripe structure. These results will open
lattice constant of the crystal should be reduced to as small a door for various important applications in the field of quan-
as 1/5–1/6 of that of the photonic crystal in the infrared tum optics and devices, including not only passive but also
wavelength region. Figures 3共a兲 and 3共b兲 show the top view active devices.
of the two-stacked layers and the cross-sectional view of the
aligned parallel stripes. These results indicate that the sub- This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for
micron stripes are well stacked and the excellent alignment Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science,
has been realized between two parallel stripes. The align- Sports, and Culture of Japan.
ment accuracy was estimated to be within 50 nm, and in this
case, the band-gap width can be theoretically estimated to be
as large as 100 meV,11,14 which is large enough for control of 1
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