Gai, XinLuther-Davies, BarryWhite, Thomas2014-03-202014-03-201094-4087http://hdl.handle.net/1885/11469We have designed and fabricated a 2-D photonic crystal hetero-structure cavity in the chalcogenide glass Ge11.5As24Se64.5 that is fully embedded in a cladding with refractive index of 1.44. The low index contrast of this structure (≈1.21) means that high-Q resonances cannot be obtained using standard hetero-structure cavity designs based on W1 waveguides. We show that reducing the waveguide width can substantially improve light confinement, leading to high-Q resonances in a hetero-structure cavity. Numerical simulations indicate intrinsic Qv > 107 are possible with this approach. Experimentally, an optical cavity with a high intrinsic Qv>7.6 x 105 was achieved in a structure with a theoretical Qv = 1.7 x 106.The research was conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (project number CE110001018). The device fabrication was partially supported by the facilities of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF). The calculation was supported by the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) National Facility.13 pages©2012 Optical Society of Americananocavitiesphotoniccrystalchalcogenide glass2012-06-2510.1364/OE.20.0155032015-12-08