Influence of the background dielectric constant on the band structure of metallo-dielectric photonic crystals

We studied theoretically the photonic band structures of two-dimensional metallo-dielectric photonic crystals consisting of a square lattice with scatterers of square rods embedded into backgrounds with different dielectric constants. We have used the plane wave method, the frequency-dependent finite-difference time-domain method, and the transfer matrix method to obtain the dispersion characteristics. Changing the background dielectric constant leads to increasing the relative band gap width Δω/ω _g as large as 20%, creation of a new gap, shifting band structures towards lower frequencies and reducing group velocity.