The reflection and refraction properties of light at an interface between two media are usually classified as kinematic and dynamic. Both are determined by the refractive indices of the media. The kinematic properties refer to the direction of light propagation, whereas the dynamic properties refer to the polarization, magnitude, and phase changes of the reflected and refracted waves. Metamaterials and photonic crystals are often assigned an effective refractive index defined by their dispersion curves. This work shows for the first time, to our knowledge, that although the kinematic properties are consistent with this index definition, in some cases the dynamic properties are not. This observation has important implications for photonic crystal understanding and design because it shows that their rich physical phenomena cannot always be simplified to a description in terms of an effective refractive index.

© 2005 Optical Society of America

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Citation lists with outbound citation links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Article level metrics are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

Related Journal Articles

• Tailoring visible photonic bandgaps through microstructural order and coupled material effects in SiO₂ colloidal crystals (JOSAB)
• Growth and property characterizations of photonic crystal structures consisting of colloidal microparticles (JOSAB)
• Photonic bandgap optimization in inverted fcc photonic crystals (JOSAB)
• Exploitation of the Z-scan technique as a method to optically probe pK_a in organic materials: application to porphyrin derivatives (OL)
• Optical characteristics of triclinic rubidium hydrogen selenate (JOSAB)

Related Conference Papers

• How Effective is the Effective Refractive Index?
• Negative Refraction in Si-Based 2-Dimensional Slab Photonic Crystal Structures
• Optical Negative-Index Metamaterials: From Low to No Loss
• Lumped Circuit Model for an Active Right-Handed Medium with Negative Refractive Index
• 1-D omnidirectional reflectors for visible and near infra red