Bound states in the continuum on periodic structures surrounded by strong resonances

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) are trapped or guided modes with their frequencies in the frequency intervals of the radiation modes. On periodic structures, a BIC is surrounded by a family of resonant modes with their quality factors approaching infinity. Typically the quality factors are proportional to 1/|β - β_∗|², where β and β_∗ are the Bloch wave vectors of the resonant modes and the BIC, respectively. But for some special BICs, the quality factors are proportional to 1/|β - β_∗|⁴. In this paper, a general condition is derived for such special BICs on two-dimensional periodic structures. As a numerical example, we use the general condition to calculate special BICs, which are antisymmetric standing waves, on a periodic array of circular cylinders, and show their dependence on parameters. The special BICs are important for practical applications, because they produce resonances with large quality factors for a very large range of β.