Experimental dispersion of the radiative Bloch modes of GaAs photonic crystals consisting of pillars in a graphite arrangement

We report experimental results for the dispersion of Bloch modes in two-dimensional photonic crystals consisting of pillars in a graphite arrangement deeply etched into an asymmetric gallium-arsenide-based waveguide film. The quality factor Q of a confined mode that cannot be excited using normally incident plane waves (because of its spatial symmetry mismatch) has been estimated over a significant part of the Brillouin zone. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.