Light propagation in periodic microcavities

We demonstrated light propagation in a type of optical waveguide, which consisted of periodically arrayed dielectric particles. Although the form is similar to a photonic crystal waveguide, our method used resonance frequencies instead of band-gap frequencies. Advantages provided by this waveguide are that dynamic optical interconnection can be realized and that a multichannel waveguide is easily formed. To fabricate the system of periodic microcavities, we used polystyrene-latex particles that have a uniform size of 15.6 μm. Some discrete frequencies of fluorescence were selected to agree with the phase matching condition and they were propagated through the microspheres. The assembled microspheres can be taken as a multichannel waveguide.