Simulating the Interaction of Light and Matter in Metal-Dielectric Photonic Crystals

Metal-Dielectric Photonic crystals (MDPCs) are a relatively new technology consisting of alternating layers of metal and semi-conducting material. These devices, while simple in structure, have found application as solar cells and OLEDs, and have the potential for application in optically pumped lasers, photonic computers, and quantum computing. With a wide range of current and future technologies built from MDPCs, a tool which can accurately simulate the optical properties of these devices is highly sought after. One such simulation tool was developed by a former member of the UVM Device Physics group, David Allemeier, using the transfer matrix formalism to predict the optical properties of MDPC devices. However, this tool fails to predict the effects of weak coupling between cavity modes and dipole emitters within devices, which can enhance or suppress the emission of light within a device via the Purcell Effect. In this project, a quantum transfer matrix tool was developed using the formalism of S-Quantization. This new simulation tool accounts for weak coupling within devices, and accurately predicts peak wavelengths and the position dependence of dipole emitters in monocavity devices, a huge improvement from the old simulation tool.