Which Computational Methods Are Good For Analyzing Large Photonic Crystal Membrane Cavities?

By introducing defects into an otherwise periodic photonic crystal lattice, high quality (Q) factor cavities may be formed. However, the size and the lack of simplifying symmetries in the photonic crystal membrane make these types of cavities exceptionally hard to analyze using numerical simulation methods. In this work, we consider two different line defect cavities and we compute their Q factors using state-of-the-art optical simulation tools. We show that certain simulation methods perform much better than others in the analysis of these challenging structures.