Photonic band structure: The case of oval holes

The photonic bands of a face-centered-cubic structure with a basis consisting of three intersecting cylinders with oval cross section are computed using the plane-wave method. The optimal band-gap size to midgap frequency ratio is found to be 12% larger than the case of circular holes for a refractive-index contrast of 3.6. A contour plot is computed that gives this ratio as a function of both the refractive-index contrast and the major diameter of the oval holes.