Stability of the photonic band gap in the presence of disorder

The photonic eigenmodes near a band gap of a type of one-dimensional disordered photonic crystal have been investigated statistically. For the system considered, it is found that the tail of the density of states entering the band gap is characterized by a certain penetration depth, which is proportional to the disorder parameter. A quantitative relation between the relative penetration depth, the relative width of the photonic band gap, and the disorder has been found. It is apparent that there is a certain level of disorder below which the probability of the appearance of photonic eigenstates at the center of the photonic band gap essentially vanishes. Below the threshold, the ensemble-averaged transmission at the center of the photonic band gap does not change significantly with increasing disorder, but above threshold it increases much more rapidly. A simple empirical formula has been obtained which describes how the logarithm of the transmission relates to the periodic refractive index modulation and the disorder.