Quantifying the intrinsic amount of fabrication disorder in photonic-crystal waveguides from optical far-field intensity measurements
Published in Applied Physics Letters 102, 031101, 2013
This publication develops a simple and practical method to assess the degree of imperfection in nanostructures due to the manufacturing process. In science in general and in nanotechnology in particular, the degree of precision required is crucial since any deviation from the initial design can damage and hinder the functionality for which the device has been designed. Quantifying these imperfections is not an easy task since they are minimal due to the great development of current manufacturing techniques. Residual clutter due to manufacturing imperfections has a major impact in nanophotonics, where it can degrade device performance by increasing radiation loss or spontaneously trapping light via Anderson localization. In this publication, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a method to quantify the intrinsic amount of disorder in state-of-the-art photonic crystal waveguides from far-field measurements of localized Anderson modes. This is achieved by comparing the spectral range where the Anderson localization is observed with numerical simulations, and the method offers sensitivity down to 1 nanometer.