A. Tip, J. M. Combes, A. Moroz Bloch decomposition and band structure for absorptive photonic crystals (485K, pdf) ABSTRACT. We show that dielectric photonic crystals do not have band gaps in frequency regions where absorption takes place, i.e. where the frequency-dependent electric permeability $\varepsilon (\QTR{bf}{x},\omega )$ has a non-zero imaginary part. Under these circumstances real eigenvalues of the Helmholtz operator in the Bloch-decomposed formalism are absent. We find, using a suitable analytic continuation procedure, that the former change into resonances, i.e., complex numbers depending on $\QTR{bf}{k}$, the wave vector from the first Brillouin zone, thus leading to complex bands in the lower half plane.