Transmission of slow light through photonic crystal waveguide bends

The spectral dependence of the bending loss of cascaded 60° bends in photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides is explored in a slab-type silicon-on-insulator system. An ultralow bending loss of (0.05 ±0.03) dB/bend is measured at wavelengths corresponding to the nearly dispersionless transmission regime. In contrast, the PhC bend is found to become completely opaque for wavelengths corresponding to the slow-light regime. A general strategy is presented and experimentally verified to optimize the bend design for improved slow-light transmission. © 2006 Optical Society of America.