Tunable optical switch based on two orthogonal line defect waveguides

Abstract The transmission characteristics of a 2-dimensional (2D) square lattice photonic crystal waveguide (PCW) with an additional perpendicular line defect are investigated by the plane wave expansion method (PWM) and the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. From simulation results and theoretical analysis, it is found that changing the refractive index of the dielectric columns in the additional line defect can effectively adjust the light transmission through the PCW. The working mechanism can be boiled down to either the excitation of a single defect mode or the contra-directional coupling of the two defect modes. And this mechanism can be used to design other tunable optical devices.