Investigation Of The Bragg-Snell Law In Photonic

Crystals

Gina Mayonado*, Shabbir M. Mian*, Valentina Robbiano† and Franco Cacialli†

*Department of Physics, McDaniel College, 2 College Hill, Westminster, MD 21157

†Department of Physics and Astronomy, and London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London,
Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom

Abstract: We present an optical experiment on photonic crystals suitable for an advanced physics laboratory course or a
senior capstone project. Photonic crystals are periodically ordered composite systems made of materials that have
different dielectric constants, and can be arranged in one, two, or three dimensions. They are characterized by a bandgap
that depends on the size, arrangement and dielectric constant of the microstructures that make up the crystal. In addition,
the bandgap spectrally shifts with the angle of incident light. These observations are captured by the Bragg-Snell law. In
this paper, we describe a vertical deposition method for growing photonic crystals from a water suspension of
polystyrene microspheres, as well as a simple transmission experiment that students can perform using a USB-
spectrometer to explore the Bragg-Snell law.
Keywords: Spectroscopy, Photonic Crystals, Bandgap, Bragg-Snell Law
PACS: 78.67.Pt, 42.70.Qs, 01.50.Pa

INTRODUCTION Studying the nature of PhCs with relation to the

Bragg-Snell law provides a good understanding of the
In this paper, we present a simple spectroscopic wave nature of light-matter interaction, and is
experiment on photonic crystals (PhCs) suitable for an something that is easily accessible to undergraduate
advanced physics laboratory course or senior capstone students. For example, creating PhCs with the same
project. PhCs are periodically ordered composite media material and crystalline structure but different
made of materials having different dielectric constants, periodicity will produce the same effective refractive
and can be arranged in one, two or three dimensions.1 index for the incident light, a fact that students can
The periodicity is comparable to the wavelength of easily verify experimentally. Furthermore, it is striking
visible light, which allows for an incident beam to be to see the tuning of the bandgap with the angle of
strongly diffracted. This behavior is governed by the incidence in accordance with the Bragg-Snell law in
Bragg-Snell law that states that the wavelength of the real-time using commercial USB CCD spectrometers.
diffracted light depends on the angle of incidence, the The paper is organized as follows. We present an
periodicity, and effective refractive index of PhC.2 It is, outline for the derivation of the Bragg-Snell law,
therefore, possible to construct a PhC that prevents provide an overview on how to grow PhCs with
light from propagating in certain directions with polystyrene microspheres (artificial opals), describe
specified frequencies. These forbidden spectral regions our experimental setup, review our results on PhCs of
are called photonic bandgaps (PBGs). In that sense, the different sizes, and finally offer suggestions for other
behavior of photons in photonic crystals is similar to explorations of the Bragg-Snell law.
the behavior of electrons in semiconductors.
PhCs have been extensively studied since their THEORY
discovery in 1987,3-4 and engineered for a variety of
applications such as photovoltaics and optical PhCs prevent light over a small frequency range
microchips,5 metamaterials,6 and holey fibers,7 to name from passing through the crystal in specific directions
a few. In addition to being artificially created, PhCs by destructive interference. The light is, thus, back
also occur in nature such as neck feathers in domestic diffracted and it will appear as a reflection peak whose
pigeons,8 certain beetles,9 and panther chameleons.10 frequency corresponds to the PBG. The reflection

2015 BFY Proceedings, edited by Eblen-Zayas, Behringer, and Kozminski; Peer-reviewed, doi:10.1119/bfy.2015.pr.015
Published by the American Association of Physics Teachers under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
Further distribution must maintain attribution to the article’s authors, title, proceedings citation, and DOI.

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maximum or, equivalently, transmission minimum, can OPAL GROWTH
be shifted by varying the angle of incidence, the lattice
spacing or material composition. These observations We prepared the artificial opals from commercial
are described by the Bragg-Snell law, monodisperse polystyrene microspheres in a water
suspension (Thermo Scientific) with the following
2 sin , (1) diameters: 200, 220, and 370 nm. The microspheres
occupied 10% of the volume, and the standard
where, m is the order of diffraction,  is the free space deviation of the particle diameters was less than 5%. In
wavelength of light, D is the interplanar spacing, neff is order to create opals of the desired thickness, we
the effective refractive index, and  is the angle of diluted the suspensions to a concentration of 0.2%
incidence of light with respect to the normal. Fig. 1 volume/volume by adding 4.9 ml of deionized water to
shows a PhC of spherical particles with the pathlength 100 l of suspension for a total of 5 ml. In our
light rays take during the diffracting process. The experience, an opal thickness of 2-3 microns seems to
offer the best compromise between reflection and
transmission, and allows the study of optical properties
 of polymers infiltrated into the opals.13
We grew the opals at 28 °C inside an incubator
 D (Gentec) using the vertical deposition method.14 The
substrates were commercial soda lime slides, and were
cleaned with the RCA-1 procedure to give it a more
hydrophilic surface.15 We attached the slides to a dip-
coater consisting of a motorized translation stage
FIGURE 1. This figure shows how incident light undergoes (Thorlabs), and immersed them in the microsphere
diffraction when interacting with a photonic crystal. The suspension as shown in Figure 2 (a). The stage moved
pathlength difference between the two rays is m. up at a controlled rate of 7´105 mm/s and the growth
process took about three days.
pathlength difference between the two rays must be an
integer multiple of wavelengths for strong diffraction.
(a)  (b)
micro-
The Bragg-Snell law can be derived from an spheres
application of Bragg’s law of diffraction, water
meniscus
2 sin , (2)

and Snell’s law of refraction,

glass
slide
sin sin , (3)
FIGURE 2. (a) In the vertical deposition method, the film
where n2 is the refractive index of the microstructures, forms at the water meniscus and glass substrate interface.
n1 is the refractive index of the interstitial medium, and The [111] direction is perpendicular to the substrate. (b) The
φ is the angle of the refracted ray in the crystal. The dip-coater assembly can handle multiple slides and opal
effective refractive index is related to the sum of the growth takes about 3 days.
refractive indices of the two media, weighted by their
volume fraction, through the Lorentz-Lorenz relation11, Fig. 2(a) shows the basic growth mechanism. The
opal film is created at the interface between the water
meniscus and the glass substrate by the Van der Waals
1 . (4)
force during water evaporation. The polystyrene
microspheres self-assemble into a face-centered cubic
Artificial opals have a face-centered cubic structure lattice with the crystallographic [111] direction
and the volume fraction, f, for spheres is 0.74.12 In our oriented perpendicular to the substrate. In order to
case, we used polystyrene microspheres (n2 = nps = avoid the presence of stacking faults, we placed the
1.59) in air (n1 = nair = 1.00). Based on Equation (4), entire set-up on an optical table to minimize vibration.
the effective refractive index is 1.41 for artificial opals Figure 2(b) shows the dip-coater inside the incubator
regardless of the size of the microspheres. with multiple slides securely attached to an extension.
This allows us to simultaneously create opals of
different sized microspheres.

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 TRANSMISSION EXPERIMENT We placed the opal on a rotation stage (Thorlabs,
RP01, 2 markings) and ensured that the incident light
The experimental setup shown in Fig. 3 consists of a hit the crystal on the rotation axis. We collected the
tungsten-halogen white light source (360-2000 nm, scattered light using a fiber-optic cable connected to a
Ocean Optics LS-1) that was slightly apertured before computer-controlled USB spectrometer (Ocean Optics,
collimating. This is an important step that limits the MayaPRO 2000). We adjusted the angle of incidence
range of incident angles of the rays comprising the in 4° increments from 0° up to 44°, and measured the
incident beam, and simplifies the analysis of the wavelength for minimum transmission for each angle.
resulting spectra.
DISCUSSION
Fiber 
optic
Collecting  The bandgap in artificial opals only exists in the
lens [111] direction, and is called a pseudo-bandgap (p-
USB‐
spectrometer PBG). At the p-PBG, light is coherently diffracted by
Rotation  the (111) planes giving rise to a transmission
Photonic 
stage crystal minimum.16 Fig. 4 shows the transmission spectra for
the opals formed by (a) 200 nm, (b) 220 nm, and (c)
Collimating  370 nm microspheres. Notice that the photonic
lens bandgap shifts to smaller wavelengths (higher energy)
Aperture with increasing incidence angle in accordance with the
Bragg-Snell law. The transmission spectra have broad
White light 
source
spectral features and the shifts are also quite large. As
such, they can be easily measured using low-cost USB-
spectrometers. For the maximum angle of 44 we used
FIGURE 3. Experimental setup for measuring transmission in our experiment, the shift was about 50 nm for 200
spectra of the PhC. nm opal, 56 nm for 220 nm opal, and 108 nm for 370
nm opal.

60 60

50 0
Transmission (%)

Transmission (%)

4
50
8
40 12
16 40
20
30 24
28
32 30
20 36
40 (b) 220 nm 
(a) 200 nm  44
10 20
350 400 450 500 550 600 650 350 400 450 500 550 600 650
Wavelength (nm) Wavelength (nm)

90 7
(c) 370 nm  (d) 
80 200 nm
6
Transmission (%)

70 220 nm
2 (105 nm2)

5
60
370 nm
50 4
40
3
30
2
20
10 1
400 500 600 700 800 900 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Wavelength (nm) sin2

FIGURE 4. This figure shows transmission spectra of the opals as a function of incidence angle for (a) 200 nm, (b) 220 nm and
(c) 370 nm. The Bragg-Snell law analysis of the spectra appears in (d) where the lines are linear regressions.

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Fig. 4 (d) shows a linearized form of Bragg-Snell law 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant
applied to the minimum transmission wavelength and Agreement N. 643238 (SYNCHRONICS) and the EC
incident angle. The solid lines through the data are Seventh Framework Programme PITN-GA-2012-
linear regressions from which we derive an effective 317488-CONTEST. F. Cacialli is a Royal Society
refractive index of 1.40 for each opal in good Wolfson Research Merit Award holder.
agreement with the Lorentz-Lorenz relation.
Notice for the 370 nm opal (Fig. 4 c), the p-PBG REFERENCES
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
S. M. Mian would like to thank the Faculty
Development Committee of McDaniel College for
partial financial support of this project. V. Robbiano
and F. Cacialli would like to thank the EU HORIZON

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