Photonic crystals: basic concepts and devices

The art of microphotonics consists in confining photons, in one or more directions, in structures having dimensions about the wavelength, and doing this for the longest possible duration. The objective is then to associate these microstructures in order to carry out a photonic integration allowing data processing in very compact systems and using low optical powers. Photonic crystals have largely showed these last years their capacity to achieve these goals. To cite this article: P. Viktorovitch et al., C. R. Physique 8 (2007).