Group index and dispersion properties of photonic crystal waveguides with circular and square air-holes

The slow light and group velocity dispersion properties of 2D triangular lattice photonic crystal line defect waveguide (PCW) with square and circular air-holes are numerically investigated with the plane-wave expansion method. The simulation results show that the guided mode is impacted slightly by the cross section’s shape of the air-holes of the same filling ratio. Adjusting two rows of the inner-hole adjacent to the waveguide and modifying the waveguide width can bring in low-group velocity and low-dispersion (LVLD) region, in which the group index of the square holes can reach 210 which is far better than the circular-holes. At the same air-hole size and waveguide width, the PCW with the square holes can support higher bit rate of the signal up to 35 Gb/s. These results provide important theoretical basis for realizing of optical buffering and optical logic devices in all-optical network.