Photonic hypercrystals (PHCs) are materials combining hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) with widely used photonic crystals. We found that finite-sized Type-I HMMs can support unique electromagnetic modes, which could be utilized in two-dimensional photonic crystals to achieve PHCs with twisted bands in the infrared region. Numerical investigation of the PHCs showed that the twisted bands have degenerate points that can support all-angle self-collimation effects. The behaviors of light beams change dramatically in such bands, which provides an effective method in controlling light propagation and can be applied as switching. The effect of the filling factor and the permittivity of the dielectric medium of the HMM on the twisted bands were studied. Furthermore, by considering the nonlinear effect of the dielectric layers, an all-optical switch working on the PHC twisted bands is proposed, which has low switching power and high extinction ratio (19.75 dB), superior to conventional HMM switches that require type transformation of metamaterial.
Keywords: hyperbolic metamaterials; photonic crystals; photonic hypercrystals; self-collimation; switching.