A photonic crystal polarization beam splitter based on photonic band gap and self-collimation effects is designed for optical communication wavelengths. The photonic crystal structure consists of a polarization-insensitive self-collimation region and a splitting region. TM- and TE-polarized waves propagate without diffraction in the self-collimation region, whereas they split by 90 degrees in the splitting region. Efficiency of more than 75% for TM- and TE-polarized light is obtained for a polarization beam splitter size of only 17 μm x 17 μm in a wavelength interval of 60 nm including 1.55 μm
