Diffractive properties of imaginary-part photonic crystal slab

The diffraction spectra of imaginary-part photonic crystal (IPPC) slabs are analyzed using the scattering-matrix method. By investigating the thickness dependence of the diffraction, we find a remarkable red shift of central wavelength of the diffraction spectrum, which obviously distinguishes from the phenomenon of spectral hole. We observe that diffraction efficiency can be enhanced more than 20-fold by optimizing the geometry parameters. These imply that the diffraction spectra of the IPPC slab can be controlled at will and used to guide the design to achieve useful nanoscale devices.