The stability of polarisation singularities in disordered photonic crystal waveguides

The effects of short range disorder on the polarisation characteristics of light in photonic crystal waveguides were investigated using finite difference time domain simulations with a view to investigating the stability of polarisation singularities. It was found that points of local circular polarisation (C-points) and contours of linear polarisation (L-lines) continued to appear even in the presence of high levels of disorder, and that they remained close to their positions in the ordered crystal. These results are a promising indication that devices exploiting polarisation in these structures are viable given current fabrication standards.