| Light propagating in a periodically perturbed medium can take on several optical properties that do not occur in homogenous materials. The optical response in these materials is a sharp function of spectral frequency, incident angle, electric field polarization, and crystal orientation. All of these unique properties can be used to make optical devices that have novel functionality and performance in a compact footprint. Due to the fact that all of these optical properties are observed in silicon by changing the geometry of the crystalline material, i.e. lattice symmetry, unit cell size and shape, and out-of-plane thickness, integration of several devices on a single platform is straightforward. Negative refraction and the self-collimation effect are critical to these applications in order to compensate for diffraction in these devices where there is no transverse, only out-of-plane, confinement of the light. In order to make functional devices, these effects need to be fully experimentally characterized. The optical response of several realizations of these materials is characterized with far field and near field techniques as a function of frequency and polarization. Because there is no transverse confinement in these materials, several integrated devices can be made, that up until now have only had free space analogs. Concluding this thesis, we present a polarizing beam splitter, an imaging dove prism and an anamorphic prism pair, and a novel small angle total internal reflection prism. All of these devices rely on anomalous propagation in photonic crystals and have features that prisms made out of bulk materials cannot replicate. |
