Femtosecond measurements of the time of flight of photons in a three-dimensional photonic crystal.

We report on experimental measurements of the propagation behavior of short optical pulses in a three-dimensional photonic crystal in the visible spectrum. The propagation delay of 70 fs light pulses transmitted through a sample of a fcc synthetic opal at frequencies lying in a photonic stop band was measured directly using a time-of-flight technique. Taking into account spectral reshaping of the transmitted pulses as well as the residual frequency chirp of the incoming pulses, it is found that the pulses significantly slow down at the photonic band edges.