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 OFFPRINT
Transmission properties in a photonic crystal
with a Dirac-like point located at the Brillouin
zone center
H. Gao, Y. Zhou, L. Zhao and G. Wei
EPL, 120 (2017) 44004

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 November 2017
EPL, 120 (2017) 44004 www.epljournal.org
doi: 10.1209/0295-5075/120/44004

Transmission properties in a photonic crystal with a Dirac-like

point located at the Brillouin zone center

H. Gao1,2(a) , Y. Zhou1(b) , L. Zhao1 and G. Wei2

1
Department of Physics, Capital Normal University - Beijing 100048, China
2
School of Science, China University of Geosciences - Beijing, 100083, China

received 22 September 2017; accepted in final form 23 January 2018

published online 13 February 2018

PACS 42.25.Bs – Wave propagation, transmission and absorption

PACS 78.67.Pt – Multilayers; superlattices; photonic structures; metamaterials
PACS 42.70.-a – Optical materials

Abstract – Light transmission properties of a two-dimensional dielectric photonic crystal (PC)

with a Dirac-like point located at the Brillouin zone center are studied. The results show that
at the Dirac-like point, the transmittance remains constant rather than inversely varying with
the PC’s thickness, that is, this transmission does not follow the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon.
Moreover, since the PC with a Dirac point at the Brillouin zone center can mimic zero index
material (ZIM), transmittance of a real homogeneous ZIM layer is also theoretically investigated.
Invariant transmittance is obtained again and the constant transmittance at the Dirac-like point
is confirmed. Physical mechanisms of the pseudo-diffusive transmission as well as the constant
transmission are both analyzed. It is found that the Dirac point is a critical state between band
gaps and transmission bands, where the wave vector takes a complex number. It is the imaginary
part of the wave vector which causes the decrease of the transmittance. While at the Dirac-like
point at the center of the Brillouin zone, an additional flat band makes the Dirac point frequency
fall into a transmission band where the wave vector is a real number, therefore the transmittance
does not display any decrease tendency.

c EPLA, 2018
Copyright 

Introduction. – In recent years, the Dirac cone, or
the linear dispersion relation around a crossing point of
bands has attracted considerable attention due to its rich
and peculiar physical phenomena, such as the pseudo-
diffusive transmission [1,2], Klein tunneling [3], Zitterbe-
wegung [4], antilocalization [5,6], abnormal quantum Hall
effect [7], etc. The crossing point of the bands in Dirac
cones is referred to as Dirac point. In two-dimensional
PCs, Dirac points can be classified into two typical kinds
according to their locations. In this paper for convenience
of description, one is referred to as K-Dirac point which
is located at the corners of the Brillouin zone (K-Dirac
point), and the other is Γ-Dirac point that is located at
the center of the Brillouin zone (Γ-Dirac point). In gen-
eral, K-Dirac point appears in PCs with triangular lattice
structure [2] and honeycomb structure [1,8,9], the relevant
researches are usually focused on their transmission prop-
erties. In contrast, Γ-Dirac point usually appears in the
(a) E-mail: gaohua@cugb.edu.cn
(b) E-mail: 263zys@263.net
PC with square lattice [10], and the related studies are
mainly concentrated on its effective zero refractive index
and the related phenomena [10–13]. As the dispersion re-
lations around the Dirac points are all linear, this feature
brings many similar propagation properties for the two
type Dirac points. However, different positions in the Bril-
louin zone correspond to different wave vectors, which will
certainly bring different transmission properties. There-
fore, it is natural to raise the question as to what phenom-
ena the common properties are, and what the individual
features of the two type Dirac points are. And further,
what is the physical origin of each phenomenon?
Pseudo-diffusive transmission is an abnormal phe-
nomenon which was first discovered in electrical con-
duction through graphene [14–16]. It is near a Dirac
point, the transmittance is inversely proportional to the
sample’s thickness as if the material was a disordered
medium. It has been considered that this abnormal trans-
mission is caused by the conical dispersion relations near
the Dirac points [1]. Thus, several years ago, when the
Dirac cone dispersions were found in some PCs, similar

44004-p1
H. Gao et al.
transmission properties were also discovered in photonic
system [1,2,17]. Both in the electric system and pho-
tonic system, all of the pseudo-diffusive transmissions were
found at the K-Dirac points. But to our surprise, not long
ago a paper reported that the pseudo-diffusive transmis-
sion was also achieved at a Γ-Dirac point in a square lat-
tice PC [18]. However, if the pseudo-diffusive transmission
exists at Γ-point, some questions have to be considered.
It has been widely accepted that when a Dirac point is
formed at Γ-point, the PC has effective zero permittiv-
ity and permeability simultaneously, resulting a novel all
dielectric ZIM [10,11]. Our first question is: does this phe-
nomenon exist in a real ZIM? Besides, in ref. [1], it has
been proved that the inverse proportion transmittance is
independent of the PC’s interfaces, together with the uni-
form field inside the PC ZIM, what is the origin of the
decreasing transmittance? Not only that, unlike the Dirac
cone of the triangular lattice, the Dirac cone in the square
lattice of ref. [18] is not a standard Dirac cone, but there
is also an additional flat band crossing with the cones at
the Dirac point, does this flat band affect the transmission
property?
In this paper, through careful simulation, comparison
and theoretical analysis, we found and confirmed that the
transmission characteristic of the square lattice PC inves-
tigated in ref. [18] is somewhat different from the pseudo-
diffusive phenomenon. Exactly at the Γ-Dirac point, its
transmittance does not decrease with the PC’s thickness,
instead, it remains a constant of unit 1. Further analy-
sis indicates that the fundamental reason for the pseudo-
diffusive phenomenon is the singularity state of the Dirac
point. It is a critical state between a forbidden band and
a transmission band where the wave propagates with a
unusual complex wave vector. While at the Γ-Dirac point
of the square lattice PC, an additional flat band makes
it be in a transmission band rather than a critical state,
therefore its wave vector is a real number and it does
not exhibit any decay of transmittance. This constant
maximum transmittance at the Dirac-like point may bring
about great application potential. For example, it is very
suitable to be a cover or substrate for samples in precise
measurements because it does not need strict thickness,
nor weakens the detection signals.
Transmission properties of the PCs at a K-Dirac
point and a Γ-Dirac point, respectively. – Here
we select two representative PC structures which hold
K-Dirac point and Γ-Dirac point, respectively, to inves-
tigate the transmission properties at the Dirac points.
First, for the K-Dirac point, the PC consisting of circu-
lar rods setting on a two-dimensional triangular lattice is
considered (see fig. 1(a)). This PC has been used to test
and confirm the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon as a typical
model [2]. Its band diagram for transverse electric (T E)
polarization (the magnetic field is along the rod axis) is
calculated using commercial software FDTD solutions. In
calculations, all the parameters take identical values with
44004-p2
Fig. 1: (Color online) PC lattice structures, the first Bril-
louin zones and photonic band structures for two different two-
dimensional dielectric PCs. There is a Dirac point formed in
each band structure, however the locations are different, one is
at a corner of the first Brillouin zone K-point, the other is at
the center of the first Brillouin zone Γ-point.
those used in ref. [2], the radius and the permittivity of
the dielectric rods are set to be R = 0.27a and ε = 14,
respectively, where a is the lattice constant. Its lattice
structure, the first Brillouin zone and the band structure
are successively shown in fig. 1(a). From the band struc-
ture it is clearly seen that the band gap between 0.4a/λ
and 0.6a/λ becomes vanishing small at the K-point, mean-
while the two adjacent transmission bands above and be-
low this gap touch as a pair of cones. The crossing point is
the so-called Dirac point and it is just located at a corner
of the first Brillouin zone K-point.
Second, for the Γ-Dirac point, we consider the PC with
square lattice (see fig. 1(b)). This kind of PC has been
widely used to explore and obtain the PC ZIM. Its struc-
ture, the first Brilluion zone and photonic band structure
are also shown in fig. 1(b). Similarly, the parameters for
the band structure calculation are the same values used in
ref. [10], the radius and the permittivity of the rods are
set to be R = 0.2a and ε = 12.5. Here the band structure
is for the transverse magnetic (T M ) wave, that is the elec-
tric field is along the z-direction. From its band structure,
it is seen that a Dirac point is also formed, unlike the tri-
angular lattice, this Dirac point is located at the center of
the first Brillouin zone, Γ-point. Moreover, the band struc-
ture at this point is somewhat different from the standard
Dirac cone, there is an additional flat transmission band
crossing the two touched conical bands, forming a three-
fold degenerate point. As a result, in some works, this
Dirac point is called a Dirac-like point.
Figure 2 gives the transmission spectra for the above two
kinds of PCs with different rod layers near the Dirac point
frequencies. In calculation, periodic boundary is used in
the left and right boundaries which corresponds to an in-
finite width. The red dashed lines indicate the positions
of the Dirac point frequencies. It is worth noting that
incident conditions for triangular lattice and square lat-
tice are different. To conserve the wave vector along the
layer’s interface, Bloch wave inside the PC should possess
 Transmission properties in a PC with a Dirac-like point located etc.
Fig. 2: (Color online) Transmission spectra for the two kinds
of PC shown in fig. 1. with different rod layers near each own
Dirac point frequency; (a) and (b) depict the triangular lattice
PC and square lattice PC, respectively.
the same kx component with the incident plane wave.
For a triangular
√
lattice, the wave vector at the K-point
2π 1 3
is a ( 2 , 2 ). Through simple calculation, the incident
angle for the Dirac point frequency is determined to be
43 degrees. In contrast, at the Γ-point, all the wave vec-
tor components are zero. So the incident direction for the
square lattice is normal incidence. From fig. 2, it is seen
that at the K-Dirac point frequency, the transmittance
of the triangular lattice PC really decreases with the in-
crease of the rod layers, which is just the embodiment of
the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon. As for the square lat-
tice PC with a Γ-Dirac point, all the transmission spectra
intersect at the same frequency and this frequency is actu-
ally the calculated Dirac point frequency. In addition, at
this point, the transmittances remain a constant of unit
1 rather than decrease with the rod layer. This result is
quite different from the report of ref. [18]. Please note that
though the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon is first found for
a layer with a finite width, it has been proved that for a
infinite wide layer it is still valid [2]. The different trans-
mission of ours and ref. [18] is not caused by the dimension
of the width.
To compare the transmission properties of these two
PCs, we further expand the rod layer number and calcu-
late the transmittance for each layer. The transmission
curves of the two PCs varying with the layer number at
each own Dirac point are shown in fig. 3. The solid lines
with rectangle points and triangular points represent the
transmittances at the Γ-Dirac point (square lattice) and
K-Dirac point (triangular lattice), respectively. It is seen
that at the Γ-Dirac point the transmission curve is almost
unchanged with the change of the layer number. The value
is always kept at unit 1. In contrast, at the K-Dirac point
the transmission curve keeps going down with the increase
44004-p3
Fig. 3: Transmission curves varying with the layer number at
the two different Dirac points.
Fig. 4: (Color online) Field distributions at the Dirac point
frequencies for the triangular lattice PC (Hz) and square lattice
PC (Ez). The main field distributions are compressed in the
y-direction to show the variation trend more clearly.
of the layer number. These two tendencies clearly indicate
that the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon existing in triangu-
lar lattice does not exist at the PC with square lattice.
To further display the different propagation properties
between the triangular lattice PC and square lattice PC,
electromagnetic field distributions are also extracted. Be-
cause of the different polarization states of the incident
waves, for convenience of comparison, the field compo-
nents Hz and Ez are respectively extracted from the trian-
gular lattice and square lattice PCs, and given in fig. 4(a)
and (b). It is obviously seen that for the triangular lat-
tice PC, its field Hz is gradually weakening along the
y-direction, but unlike an evanescent wave, the decay is
much slower. The wave can still travel many times of
the wavelength and the field has approximately periodic
distribution. Thus, the whole field is like a propagation
wave except the amplitude becomes smaller and smaller.
The inset on the right gives a more detailed field distri-
bution, because the selected length along the y-direction
is not long enough, the decay phenomenon is hardly no-
ticeable. It is worth noting that, even without considering
the own period of the rod scatters, the field still presents
apparent periodicity and the √ periods in the x-direction
and y-direction are 3a and 3a, respectively. These val-
ues actually correspond to the wave vector at the K-point.
For comparison, fig. 4(b) also gives the field distribution at
H. Gao et al.

wave. Considering more general cases, the permittivity ε2

temporarily takes a conventional value, not just zero, thus
the magnetic field inside the ZIM layer is not a constant.
Here we use H3 and H3′ to indicate the magnetic field at
the upper and lower boundaries inside the ZIM. According
to the boundary conditions of the electromagnetic wave,
at the upper interface we obtain that

E1 + E 2 = E 3 , (1)
Fig. 5: (Color online) Schematic diagram for derivation of the H 1 − H 2 = H3 ; (2)
electromagnetic wave transmittance through a real ZIM layer.
at the lower interface, we obtain that

the Γ-Dirac point. Apparently, unlike that of the triangu- E3 = E4 , (3)

lar lattice, the field in the propagation direction does not H3′ = H4 . (4)
present any decay. Moreover, from the magnified electric
field inserted on the lower right, the whole distribution Using eq. (1) and eq. (3), the relation among E1 , E2 and
does not display any periods in the x or y directions ex- E4 can be obtained,
cept for its lattice own periodicity, which is quite different
from that of the triangular lattice. Most important, the E1 + E2 − E4 = 0. (5)
field intensity is almost identical in each layer throughout
the whole calculation area. This means that the period of According to the relations between E and H in free space,
the field is infinitely long. This feature is just the inherent it is obtained that
nature of the ZIM and also coincides with the wave vector 
ε0
of the Γ-point. H1 = E1 , (6)
μ0
ε0

Transmission property of a real homogeneous H2 = E2 , (7)
ZIM layer. – It is well known that for a two-dimensional μ0
dielectric PC material, when a Dirac point is formed at ε0

the center of the Brillouin zone, this PC can mimic ZIM. H4 = E4 ; (8)
μ0
At the Dirac point frequency, its effective permittivity
and permeability are simultaneously zero. According to by plugging eq. (6), eq. (7) and eq. (8) into eq. (5), eq. (5)
electromagnetic theory, for a material layer with a cer- can be written as
tain size, its transmission property is solely determined   
by the electromagnetic parameters of the material. So μ0 μ0 μ0
H1 + H2 − H4 = 0; (9)
the transmittance of this kind of PC ZIM should be the ε0 ε0 ε0
same of a real homogeneous ZIM with the same dimen- 
μ0
sions. Here we consider the transmittance of light wave by eliminating the nonzero coefficient ε0 , the relation
passing through a layer of real ZIM at normal incidence. among H1 , H2 and H4 can be obtained,
For convenience, we will omit the time variation e−iωt in
the following derivation. H1 + H2 − H4 = 0. (10)
Figure 5 gives the simple schematic diagram for electro-
magnetic derivation, where the grey rectangle indicates a According to the integral formula of the Maxwell equation,
layer of homogeneous material with permittivity and per-
 · dl = ε2 d
 
meability of ε2 and μ2 , respectively. The background is a H E3 · ds; (11)
dt
free space and its electromagnetic parameters are permit-
tivity ε0 and permeability μ0 . Now we consider the trans- by integrating H along the red dashed line shown in fig. 5,
mittance when an electromagnetic wave passes through it it is obtained that
at normal incidence. As for the PC ZIM, it has zero per-
mittivity and permeability simultaneously, so we firstly d
(H1 −H2 )W −H4 W = ε2 LW E3 = −iωε2 LW E3 , (12)
suppose that μ2 → 0. According to Maxwell’s curl equa- dt
tion ∇ × E  = −μ ∂ B , the electric field inside the ZIM where W and L are the width and length of the integral
∂t
layer, E3 , should be a constant. We use E1 and E2 to in- path, respectively, and L is also the thickness of the ZIM
dicate the electric fields of the incident wave and reflected layer, ω is the angular frequency of the light wave. By
wave, respectively, use H1 and H2 to indicate their mag- simplification, eq. (12) is reduced to
netic counterparts. Similarly, E4 and H4 are used to repre-
sent the electric field and magnetic field of the transmitted H1 − H2 − H4 + iωε2 LE3 = 0; (13)

44004-p4
 Transmission properties in a PC with a Dirac-like point located etc.

by plugging eq. (10) into eq. (13), it is obtained that

2H1 − 2H4 + iωε2 LE3 = 0. (14)

According to eq. (3) and eq. (8),


μ0
E3 = E4 = H4 ; (15)
ε0

by plugging eq. (15) into eq. (14), it can be obtained that


μ0
2H1 − 2H4 + iωε2 L H4 = 0. (16) Fig. 6: (Color online) Transmission spectra near the Dirac-
ε0 like point frequency for the square lattice PC with different
Then, amplitude ratio between the transmitted light and frequencies near the Dirac point, their transmittances decrease
the incident light can be obtained: with the increase of the rod layer.
H4 2
=  . (17)
H1 2 − iωLε2 με00
The transmittance is
 2
 H4  2 
   
2 
T =
  =
   . (18)
H1  μ0
 2 − iωLε2 ε 
0 Γ-point. Although the flat transmission band is a thin
From eq. (18), it is clearly seen that if the permittivity ε2
is also zero, the transmittance is always unit 1, indepen-
dently of the layer’s thickness L. This result agrees well
with our former simulated transmittance of the square
lattice PC. To further verify the correctness of our nu-
merical method, the transmittance of a real ZIM layer is
also numerically simulated using the same calculation al-
gorithm for the PCs, including absorptive and nonabsorp-
tive double-zero refraction material. All of the simulations
coincide with the results of eq. (18) perfectly. Therefore,
we can now conclude that at the Γ-Dirac-like point, the
square lattice PC does not have the pseudo-diffusive trans-
mission property.
The transmission mechanisms at Dirac points. –
In this section, we disclose the mechanisms of the trans-
mission characteristics at Dirac points. According to the
expended basic theory (EBT) [19–21], the wave vector (or
number) in PCs should be a complicated vector (or num-
ber). The real part of the wave vector determines the
wavelength and transmission direction of the correspond-
ing Bloch wave. The imaginary part determines the atten-
uation of the wave. In other words, when the imaginary
part is large enough, the wave will attenuate rapidly, this
forms the band gaps. Contrarily, when the imaginary part
is small enough, the wave will travel in the PCs for a long
distance. This is the transmission band case. In general,
the imaginary part takes a value either very large or very
small, and, of course, it will continuously transfer at the
boundary between the transmission band and gap [21].
However, a Dirac point can be thought as a critical point,
which is intervenient between the transmission band and
gap, so the corresponding imaginary part must be in the
layer numbers. The red dashed lines indicate that at the other
case between very large and very small. In other words,
the imaginary part should be a mezzo number and it leads
to the gradual attenuation of the wave in PC. This is the
reason for the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon.
Another question is why the transmission at Γ-Dirac
point does not attenuate. This is caused by the flat
transmission band which intersects the Dirac point at the
layer, the Γ-Dirac point is immerged in this layer. This
means that the wave with the frequency at the Γ-Dirac
point is located in the transmission band, which should
not attenuate. We refer to the above explanation as flat
band effect.
To demonstrate the flat band effect from the opposite
view angle, we choose a point, which is escaped from the
flat band but located at the Dirac cone near the Γ-point.
It is known that the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon occurs
at not only the Γ-Dirac point but also at the Dirac cone
near the Γ-point [1,2]. So it is expected that the pseudo-
diffusive phenomenon can be observed at this point. To
identify whether the flat mode affects the transmission
property at the Dirac point, transmissions near the Dirac
point are intensively studied. Figure 6 gives the trans-
mission spectra for the square lattice PC. From the band
structure in fig. 1, it is easily known that when the fre-
quency slightly shifts from the Dirac-like point, the flat
band mode will not be excited [22]. Apparently, precisely
at the Dirac point where the flat band mode is excited its
transmittance is a constant, independently of the layer
number. In contrast, if the frequency is not precisely
at the Dirac point, say, the flat band mode is not ex-
cited, for example at the two frequencies where the red
dashed lines indicate, their transmittances truly decrease
with the increase of the layer number. This trend clearly
shows that the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon exists near
the Dirac point.
The cause of the disappearance of the pseudo-diffusive
transmission can be further verified by using another PC
structure. When the structural parameters and the per-
mittivity of the triangle lattice shown in fig. 1(a) take the
values of R = 0.206a and ε = 8.5, the polarization state

44004-p5
H. Gao et al.
Fig. 7: (Color online) Photonic band structure (a) and trans-
mission spectra for different layers (b) of the triangular lattice
PC shown in fig. 1(a) for the T M polarization with R = 0.206a
and ε = 8.5.
is changed to T M (the electric field is along the axis of
the rod), similar Dirac-like cone can also be formed at the
Γ point. Its band structure of the TM polarized wave and
the transmission curves for different layers are given in
fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively. It is seen that at the Dirac
point frequency, the pseudo-diffusive transmission also dis-
appears and the constant transmittance is obtained, which
are the exactly results we expect. Up to now, we can con-
clude that the position of the Dirac point, as well as the
zero index refraction are not the cause of the disappear-
ance of the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon. The extra flat
band at the Dirac point is the fundamental reason.
Conclusion. – The transmission properties at the
Γ-Dirac and K-Dirac points of two-dimensional dielectric
photonic crystals are investigated by the numerical simu-
lation method. The pseudo-diffusive phenomenon at the
K-Dirac point is confirmed, this result accords with that
reported by other scholars. However, we find different re-
sults which show that, at Γ-Dirac point, the transmission
remains constant rather than varying with the PC’s thick-
ness. We propose a general explanation for the transmis-
sion properties at Dirac points based on the EBT. In trans-
mission band of photonic crystals the imaginary parts of
wave numbers of the Bloch waves must be near-zero num-
bers, and the transmission does not show the attenuation
phenomenon. But in forbidden bands, all the imaginary
parts take large numbers. This leads to the rapid attenu-
ation so that the waves cannot travel long distance. The
Dirac points can be thought as the transition points from
transmission bands to forbidden bands (or from forbid-
den bands to transmission bands), so the imaginary parts
should be the number between near-zero and large num-
bers. This makes the Bloch waves at Dirac points attenu-
ate slowly, which is just the reason for the pseudo-diffusive
phenomenon. At the Γ-Dirac point, the pseudo-diffusive
phenomenon should also exist, but the flat transmission
band crosses the Dirac point at the Γ-point, and this leads
to the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon covered by the trans-
mission without attenuation in the flat band.
44004-p6
View publication stats
∗∗∗
This work is supported by the National Natural Sci-
ence Foundation of China with Nos. 11504336, 11274233
and the Funds for Central University Research Works with
No. 265201430.
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