Multiple parameter space bandgap control of reconfigurable atmospheric plasma photonic crystal

A plane wave expansion method is used to simulate the bandgaps for a square lattice plasma photonic crystal over a parameter space of five independent variables, characteristic of a reconfigurable atmospheric discharge (plasma frequency: 0.056-5.6 × 10¹² rad/s, collision frequency: 1-6 × 10¹² rad/s, plasma column radius: 0.2-0.4 mm, lattice constant: 1-2 mm, and background dielectric: 1-10). The trends of the first and second bandgaps allow for five-dimensional 4th order polynomial equations to be fitted to the data, defining the boundaries of the first and second bandgaps with 8% and 2% error, respectively. Performance metrics (operational frequency range and frequency sensitivity) of the plasma photonic crystal are defined and evaluated for each controlling variable. The results show that, within the variable space investigated here, the column radius and background dielectric are the most effective controlling variables for the bandgap bandwidth and center frequency, respectively. The maximum frequency range provided by the variable ranges investigated here is 25-400 GHz and 0-250 GHz for the TE₁ and TE₀ bandgaps, respectively.