Enhancement of near-infrared photonic band gap in a doped semiconductor photonic crystal

In this work, the enhancement in photonic band gap (PBG) in a dielectric-semiconductor photonic crystal (DS PC) is investigated. We consider two possible schemes that can be used to enhance the PBG in the near-infrared region. The first scheme is to add an ultrathin metal layer into the DS PC such that a structure of ternary metal-dielectric-semiconductor (MDS) PC is formed. The second scheme is to make use of the heterostructured PC. In scheme 1, it is found that the addition of metal layer will significantly move the left band edge to the shorter wavelength position, leading to an enlargement in the PBG. This enlargement can be extended as the thickness of metal film is increased. In addition, a pronounced enhancement in PBG is achieved when the metal with a higher plasma frequency is used. In scheme 2, we find that the PBG can be significantly enlarged compared to scheme 1. In addition, the increase in the band extension is shown to be four times larger than that in scheme 1. The results illustrate that, in order to enhance the PBG, the use of scheme 2 is superior to scheme 1. The enhancement of nearinfrared (NIR) PBG is of technical use in the optical communications.