One-dimensional photonic crystals bound by light

Through rigorous simulations, the light scattering induced optical binding of one-dimensional (1D) dielectric photonic crystals is studied. The optical forces corresponding to the pass band, band gap, and band edge are qualitatively different. It is shown that light can induce self-organization of dielectric slabs into stable photonic crystals, with its lower band edge coinciding with the incident light frequency. Incident light at normal and oblique incidence and photonic crystals with parity-time symmetry are also considered.