Performance of waveguide-based two-dimensional photonic-crystal mirrors studied with Fabry-Perot resonators

As a step toward the use of photonic crystals in optoelectronic devices, we present a thorough study of 2-D photonic-crystal mirrors etched into a GaAs-AlGaAs planar waveguide. Fabry-Perot resonators are fabricated to deduce the reflectivity, transmission, losses, as well as the penetration lengths of these mirrors. The guided photoluminescence of InAs quantum dots embedded in GaAs is used to obtain the transmission spectra of these cavities. The varying thickness between the mirrors allows a scan across the whole bandgap spectral range. Quality factors (up to 200) and peak transmissions (up to 0.3) are measured showing that mirrors of four rows of holes have 88% reflectivity, 6% transmission and 6% losses. Losses are also related to a two-dimensional transfer matrix method calculation including a recently introduced scheme to account for losses.