Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2011
Thin films of sol-gel SiO2 and TiO2 were used to fabricate two types of onedimensional photonic crystals: an omnidirectional reflector and microcavity resonator. The reflector consisted of six SiO2/TiO2 bilayers, designed with a stopband in the near infrared. Reflectance measurements over an incident angle range of 0–80° showed an omnidirectional band of 70 nm, which agrees with theoretical predictions for this materials system. The microcavity resonator consisted of a TiO2 Fabry-Perot cavity sandwiched between two SiO2/TiO2 mirrors of three bilayers each. We have fabricated a microcavity with resonance at λcavity = 1500nm and achieved a quality factor of Q=35. We measured a modulation in the cavity resonance frequency with a change of defect layer thickness and incident angle of light. This work demonstrates the feasibility of fabricating photonic crystals via the sol-gel method.