Use of guided spontaneous emission of a semiconductor to probe the optical properties of two-dimensional photonic crystals

We describe an experimental setup, which allows assessing the optical properties of two-dimensional photonic crystals combined with a waveguide geometry, and etched into a light-emitting (GaAs/InGaAs) semiconductor. By means of a guiding layer, the spontaneous emission of the material is used as a built-in source to probe the properties of the etched microstructure, conveniently compared to the usual measurement schemes. We show polarized transmission and coefficients largely depending on the photonic crystal orientation. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.