The study of the photonic crystals technology is being performed by many research groups, mostly because of their many practical applications. Photonic crystal structures are comprised by materials with different refractive indexes, periodically arranged in one, two or three dimensions. They can be employed in the construction of passive photonic devices, for use in optical systems. Photonic crystal based devices have reduced dimensions when compared to the traditionally employed ones, favoring an increase on the component integration density in optical systems. On the basis of studies related to the symmetry groups of several geometrical configurations of photonic crystals and by performing many computational simulations, eight unprecedented passive devices were developed, with new operating principles. Five switches, one circulator, one nonreciprocal power divider and one multifunctional device were designed, on the basis of photonic crystals technology. The designed devices can be used, for example, in the next generation optical computers, as well as in optical communication systems.
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