Breakdown of Bose-Einstein distribution in photonic crystals

Abstract

In the last two decades, considerable advances have been made in the investigation of nano-photonics in photonic crystals. Previous theoretical investigations of photon dynamics were carried out at zero temperature. Here, we investigate micro/nano cavity photonics in photonic crystals at finite temperature. Due to photonic-band-gap-induced non-Markovian dynamics, we discover that cavity photons in photonic crystals do not obey the standard Bose-Einstein statistical distribution. Within the photonic band gap and in the vicinity of the band edge, cavity photons combine nontrivial quantum dissipation with thermal fluctuations to form photon states that can memorize the initial cavity state information. As a result, Bose-Einstein distribution is completely broken down in these regimes, even if the thermal energy is larger than the photonic band gap.