Finite difference time domain study of high efficiency photonic crystal superprisms.

Input and output boundaries of a photonic crystal (PC) are optimized so that the superprism exhibits low insertion loss. It is shown that projected-airhole and half-circular airhole interfaces achieve transmission loss of 0.3 dB and 1.0 dB, respectively, for small and large incident angles of light against normal to boundaries. The finite-difference time-domain simulation shows that a low loss is essentially realized by a periodic phase modulation of the incident beam by the interfaces. It also demonstrates the clear steering of collimated light beam with varying wavelength. The enhancement of angular dispersion is also demonstrated by a PC composed of a dispersive medium.