Photonic crystal electro-optical switching cell

We investigated the physical mechanism of a photonic crystal (PhC) switching cell based on an optical directional coupler (ODC). This ODC is driven by a low power external electrical command signal, inserted in the central coupling region, which causes the changes in the refractive index.The switching process is based on the change of the bar state to the cross state owing to the external command signal. In our simulations we used the following methods: Plane Wave Expansion by MPB (MIT Photonic-Bands), Finite-Difference Time-Domain by MEEP (MIT Electromagnetic Equation Propagation), Finite Element by COMSOL Multiphysics and our own Binary Propagation Method.