We formulate a scattering-matrix-based numerical method to calculate the optical transmission properties and quasiguided eigenmodes in a two-dimensionally periodic photonic crystal slab ͑PCS͒ of finite thickness. The square symmetry ͑point group C 4v) is taken for the illustration of the method, but it is quite general and works for any point group symmetry for one-dimensional ͑1D͒ and 2D PCS's. We show that the appearance of well-pronounced dips in the transmission spectra of a PCS is due to the interaction with resonant waveguide eigenmodes in the slab. The energy position and width of the dips in transmission provide information on the frequency and inverse radiative lifetime of the quasiguided eigenmodes. We calculate the energies, linewidths, and electromagnetic fields of such quasiguided eigenmodes, and analyze their symmetry and optical activity. The electromagnetic field in such modes is resonantly enhanced, which opens possibilities for use in creating resonant enhancement of different nonlinear effects.

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A Brillouin-Wigner perturbation theory is developed for open electromagnetic systems which are characterised by discrete resonant states with complex eigenenergies. Since these states are exponentially growing at large distances, a modified normalisation is introduced that allows a simple spectral representation of the Green's function. The perturbed modes are found by solving a linear eigenvalue problem in matrix form. The method is illustrated on exactly solvable one-and three-dimensional examples being, respectively, a dielectric slab and a microsphere.

The resonant-state expansion (RSE), a rigorous perturbative method in electrodynamics, is developed for three-dimensional open optical systems. Results are presented using the analytically solvable homogeneous dielectric sphere as unperturbed system. Since any perturbation which breaks the spherical symmetry mixes transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) modes, the RSE is extended here to include TM modes and a zero-frequency pole of the Green's function. We demonstrate the validity of the RSE for TM modes by verifying its convergence towards the exact result for a homogeneous perturbation of the sphere. We then apply the RSE to calculate the modes for a selection of perturbations sequentially reducing the remaining symmetry, given by a change of the dielectric constant of half-sphere and quarter-sphere shape. Since no exact solutions are known for these perturbations, we verify the RSE results by comparing them with the results of state of the art finite element method (FEM) and finite difference in time domain (FDTD) solvers. We find that for the selected perturbations, the RSE provides a significantly higher accuracy than the FEM and FDTD for a given computational effort, demonstrating its potential to supersede presently used methods. We furthermore show that in contrast to presently used methods, the RSE is able to determine the perturbation of a selected group of modes by using a limited basis local to these modes, which can further reduce the computational effort by orders of magnitude.