Photonic band gap phenomenon in a metal-dielectric periodic structure (Q783084)

The subject of the paper is a rigorous investigation of the band structure for one-dimensional propagating waves in a spatially periodic metal-dielectric structure. The propagation of the electromagnetic waves is governed by the Maxwell's equations. The response of the metallic component of the periodic medium (the effective dielectric permittivity) is taken as per the classical the Drude model, in the framework of which the permittivity is frequency dependent (dispersive). A straightforward analysis of the propagation band leads to a nonlinear equation for eigenvalues. Instead of that, the work implements a time-dependent formulation, which amounts to solving a linear eigenvalue problem. While the actual results are similar to those produced for the same model by earlier works, the present rigorous analysis aims to produce a strict proof of the completeness of the set of eigenmodes for the Bloch waves. One of the results is an effect of accumulation points in the spectrum of the eigenvalues, leading to an infinite number of eigenstates for waves with zero group velocity.