In this study, we investigate the effect of metallic inclusion modeled as perfect conductor on a dielectric photonic crystal (silicon/air) with large full band gap. The dielectric crystal consists of a hexagonal array of circular dielectric columns, each connected to its nearest neighbors by slender rectangular rods. It is found that inclusion of small metallic components inside the circular dielectrics sharply “turns off“ the full band gap of the dielectric photonic crystal. By increasing the radius of metallic inclusion above a threshold value, the full band gap (of the metallodielectric photonic crystal) makes its appearance again and continues to grow in size. On the other hand, metallic inclusion in the air region shows an opposite trend that the full band gap is not turned off, and its size diminishes gradually to zero with increasing the radius of inclusion. These peculiar behaviors can be explained on a unified basis by examining different types of boundary conditions for TM and TE modes, and employing variational arguments based on Rayleigh’s quotients. Moreover, the free-electron model for metallic components is also considered for TM modes. At large plasma frequencies, these modes show very close band structures to those described above for the case of perfect conductors.

• Received 9 October 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.70.075108