  We study both theoretically and experimentally the effects of introducing
deliberate disorder in a slow-light photonic crystal waveguide on the photon
density of states. We first introduce a theoretical model that includes both
deliberate disorder through statistically moving the hole centres in the
photonic crystal lattice and intrinsic disorder caused by manufacturing
imperfections. We demonstrate a disorder-induced mean blueshift and an overall
broadening of the photonic density of states for various amounts of deliberate
disorder. By comparing with measurements from a GaAs photonic crystal
waveguide, we find good qualitative agreement between theory and experiment
which highlights the importance of carefully including local field effects for
modelling high-index contrast perturbations. Our work also demonstrates the
importance of using asymmetric dielectric polarizabilities for modelling
positive and negative dielectric perturbations when modelling a perturbed
dielectric interface in photonic crystal platforms.
