Mechanically flexible polymeric compound one-dimensional photonic crystals for terahertz frequencies

We describe the fabrication and characterization of fully flexible one-dimensional photonic crystals for terahertz frequencies based on alternating layers of a highly refracting polymeric compound and a pure polymer. Due to the high permittivity contrast and low intrinsic material absorption, even a low number of layers yields structures with a pronounced artificial band gap, with a center frequency reflectivity close to unity. Besides the high filter performance, the polymeric compound one-dimensional photonic crystals can be employed for beam shaping by applying a curvature to the mechanically flexible structures, since the spectral characteristics remain nearly unchanged when the structure is flexed.