Miniaturized Optical Delay Lines Using Photonic Crystals

A novel optical delay line based on total reflection of lightwave in two dimensional photonic crystal waveguides (PCW) is introduced. The performance of this novel structure is compared to several proposed arrangements for compact delay lines in photonic crystals. Furthermore, it is shown that replacing PCWs with coupled defects can significantly increase the time delay (by at least a factor of five) without decreasing the output power. Using full-wave analysis, it is demonstrated that time delays longer than 5.25 ps can be achieved in a device size less than 25 m, while transmission loss is kept as low as 0.12dB