page_title: Photonic crystal
section_title: Three-dimensional photonic crystals
hierarchical_section_title: Photonic crystal / Construction strategies / Three-dimensional photonic crystals
caption_attribution_description: English: SEM micrographs of US Naval Research Laboratory-produced photonic-crystal fiber. (left) The diameter of the solid core at the center of the fiber is 5 µm, while (right) the diameter of the holes is 4 µm. Source: http://www.nrl.navy.mil/techtransfer/fs.php?fs_id=97
context_page_description: A photonic crystal is a periodic optical nanostructure that affects the motion of photons in much the same way that ionic lattices affect electrons in solids. Photonic crystals occur in nature in the form of structural coloration and animal reflectors, and, in different forms, promise to be useful in a range of applications.
  In 1887 the English physicist Lord Rayleigh experimented with periodic multi-layer dielectric stacks, showing they had a photonic band-gap in one dimension. Research interest grew with work in 1987 by Eli Yablonovitch and Sajeev John on periodic optical structures with more than one dimension—now called photonic crystals.
  Photonic crystals can be fabricated for one, two, or three dimensions. One-dimensional photonic crystals can be made of layers deposited or stuck together. Two-dimensional ones can be made by photolithography, or by drilling holes in a suitable substrate. Fabrication methods for three-dimensional ones include drilling under different angles, stacking multiple 2-D layers on top of each other, direct laser writing, or, for example, instigating self-assembly of spheres in a matrix and dissolving the spheres.
context_section_description: There are several structure types that have been constructed:
  Spheres in a diamond lattice
  Yablonovite
  The woodpile structure – "rods" are repeatedly etched with beam lithography, filled in, and covered with a layer of new material. As the process repeats, the channels etched in each layer are perpendicular to the layer below, and parallel to and out of phase with the channels two layers below. The process repeats until the structure is of the desired height. The fill-in material is then dissolved using an agent that dissolves the fill-in material but not the deposition material. It is generally hard to introduce defects into this structure.
  Inverse opals or Inverse Colloidal Crystals-Spheres (such as polystyrene or silicon dioxide) can be allowed to deposit into a cubic close packed lattice suspended in a solvent. Then a hardener is introduced that makes a transparent solid out of the volume occupied by the solvent. The spheres are then dissolved with an acid such as Hydrochloric acid. The colloids can be either spherical or nonspherical. contains in excess of 750,000 polymer nanorods. Light focused on this beam splitter penetrates or is reflected, depending on polarization.
caption: A photonic crystal fiber. SEM images of US NRL-produced fiber. (left) The diameter of the solid core at the center of the fiber is 5 µm, while (right) the diameter of the holes is 4 µm. Source: http://www.nrl.navy.mil/techtransfer/fs.php?fs_id=97
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