Photonic crystal (PhC) defect cavities that support an accelerating mode tend to trap unwanted higher-order modes (HOMs) corresponding to zero-group-velocity PhC lattice modes at the top of the bandgap. The effect is explained quite generally from ph
otonic band and perturbation theoretical arguments. Transverse wakefields resulting from this effect are observed in a hybrid dielectric PhC accelerating cavity based on a triangular lattice of sapphire rods. These wakefields are, on average, an order of magnitude higher than those in the waveguide-damped Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) copper cavities. The avoidance of translational symmetry (and, thus, the bandgap concept) can dramatically improve HOM damping in PhC-based structures.
For embedded boundary electromagnetics using the Dey-Mittra algorithm, a special grad-div matrix constructed in this work allows use of multigrid methods for efficient inversion of Maxwells curl-curl matrix. Efficient curl-curl
A more accurate, stable, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm is developed for simulating Maxwells equations with isotropic or anisotropic dielectric materials. This algorithm is in many cases more accurate than previous algorithms (G. R. W
erner et. al., 2007; A. F. Oskooi et. al., 2009), and it remedies a defect that causes instability with high dielectric contrast (usually for epsilon{} significantly greater than 10) with either isotropic or anisotropic dielectrics. Ultimately this algorithm has first-order error (in the grid cell size) when the dielectric boundaries are sharp, due to field discontinuities at the dielectric interface. Accurate treatment of the discontinuities, in the limit of infinite wavelength, leads to an asymmetric, unstable update (C. A. Bauer et. al., 2011), but the symmetrized version of the latter is stable and more accurate than other FDTD methods. The convergence of field values supports the hypothesis that global first-order error can be achieved by second-order error in bulk material with zero-order error on the surface. This latter point is extremely important for any applications measuring surface fields.
