Special polarization characteristic features of a three-dimensional terahertz photonic crystal with a silicon inverse diamond structure

Abstract: The band structure of an Si inverse diamond structure whose lattice point shape was vacant regular octahedrons, was calculated using plane wave expansion method. A complete photonic band gap was theoretically confirmed at around 0.4 THz. It is said that three-dimensional photonic crystals have no polarization anisotropy in photonic band gap (stop gap, stop band) of high symmetry points in normal incidence. However, it was experimentally confirmed that the polarization orientation of a reflected wave was different from that of an incident wave, [I$(X,Y)$], where $(X,Y)$ is the coordinate system fixed in the photonic crystal. It was studied on a plane (001) at around X point's photonic band gap (0.36 $-$ 0.44 THz) for incident wave direction [001] by rotating a sample in the plane (001), relatively. The polarization orientation of the reflected wave was parallel to that of the incident wave when that of the incident wave was I(1, 1) or I(1, $-$1). In contrast, the former was perpendicular to the latter when that of the incident wave was I(1, 0) or I(0, $-$1) at around 0.38 THz. As far as the photonic crystal in this work is concerned, method of resolution and synthesis of the incident polarization vector is not able to apply to the analyses of rotation of the measured reflected spectra in appearance.