Abstract: Photonic crystals have proven their ability to control the propagation of light in low-loss media. These are artificial periodic optical structures in which scattering from periodic media can strongly modify the dispersion of light. The fundamental property of photonic crystals is their photonic bandgap, which is frequency-dependent and inhibits the propagation of light in that region. Realization of these properties is applicable in many optical devices such as low loss Bragg mirrors, optical filters, and optical switches. Due to the technological challenges in fabrication, they are suffering from backscattering and localization phenomena which occurred due to the unwanted impurities and defects in the fabricated samples. Recently, the topological phase of matter from solid-state physics has been adopted in photonic crystals, which may describe a new state of light propagation. It provides a robust path for it by reducing the effects of backscattering, unwanted impurities, and defects, etc. This presentation will explain the foundation of photonic crystals from one-dimension to higher-order, and also introduces the topological ideas in photonic crystals.
Speaker: Ankit Singh (RSS2018505, PhD Student)