Probing photonic crystals on silicon-on-insulator with Ge∕Si self-assembled islands as an internal source

Abstract
We report the study of two-dimensional photonic crystals fabricated on silicon-on-insulator substrates. Ge∕Si self-assembled islands are embedded as an active internal optical source inside the photonic crystals. We present a detailed analysis of photonic crystal microcavities and waveguides using the room-temperature Ge∕Si island photoluminescence. The tunability of the microcavity resonant emission is demonstrated between 1.2 and 1.5μm. We show that the microcavity photoluminescence is weakly dependent on the temperature. The polarized transmission properties of W1 single-line defect waveguides are investigated using the photoluminescence as an internal source. The transmission spectra are correlated to those given by two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain calculations.