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Abstract. This work involves the development of a finite-element method model to examine the optical properties of two-dimensional photonic crystals (PCs). The model is capable of studying the effect of a finite number of periods in a PC structure. The new design minimizes computational resources by modeling a PC with one infinite dimension with periodic boundary conditions while modeling the second with finite dimensions. This allows for calculation of transmission and reflection spectra across the PC structure. A finite difference frequency domain (FDFD) model has been created for calculation of the photonic band structure. This is compared with the reflection spectra obtained through the reflection model and is found to closely match. The reflection model capabilities are demonstrated by calculating the reflection spectrum for various parameters: period length, number of periods, incident light polarization, and material properties. Effects of varying these parameters are demonstrated. For example, the reflectivity of a GaAs/Air PC was found to reach greater than 95% when the PC has 10 periods; it exceeds 99% with 13 periods and reaches 99.9% at 15 periods.

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