Photonic crystal for communication applications

Photonic crystals are well known for their potentials for confining and guiding light in very small structures. Photonic crystals can also exhibit strong dispersion properties. These properties may offer many exciting opportunities for optical communication applications. In this paper, we discuss some of the basic principles for designing photonic crystal structures for optical communication applications, using examples for applications in polarization mode compensations, and add/drop filtering in wavelength division multiplexing.