Novel slow-light waveguide with large bandwidth and ultra low dispersion

To tailor the bandwidth and the group-velocity dispersion, we demonstrate a novel waveguide based on a photonic crystal within a triangular array with crescent-like-shaped air holes. By changing the angle between the waveguide axis and symmetric axis of the air hole from 0 to pi/2, we find that the available bandwidth with a nearly constant group index in excess of 22 increases from 7 nm to 13 nm, that the corresponding normalized delay-bandwidth product increases from 0.202 to 0.245, and that the absolute value of the group-velocity dispersion decreases from 13.500 ps(2)/km to 10 ps(2)/km. The origin of all the findings is related to the widening of the slow-light region with the increasing of the angle. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.