Design of a high-Q air-slot cavity based on a width-modulated line-defect in a photonic crystal slab.

We have presented a novel design of a photonic crystal slab (PCS) nanocavity, in which the electric field of the cavity mode is strongly localized in free space. The feature of the cavity is a linear air slot introduced to the center of the mode-gap confined PCS cavity. Owing to the discontinuity of the dielectric constant, the electric field of the cavity mode is strongly enhanced inside the slot, allowing strong matter-field coupling and large interaction volume in free space. Using finite-difference time-domain method, we calculate the properties of the cavity mode as a function of the slot width. The calculated quality factor is still as high as 2 x 10(5) and the mode volume is as small as 0.14 of a cubic wavelength in a vacuum, even if 200-nm-wide slot is introduced to the PCS.