Université de Fribourg

Band gap formation and Anderson localization in disordered photonic materials with structural correlations

Froufe-Pérez, Luis S. ; Engel, Michael ; Sáenz, Juan José ; Scheffold, Frank

In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017, vol. 114, no. 36, p. 9570–9574

Disordered dielectric materials with structural correlations show unconventional optical behavior: They can be transparent to long-wavelength radiation, while at the same time have isotropic band gaps in another frequency range. This phenomenon raises fundamental questions concerning photon transport through disordered media. While optical transparency in these materials is robust against...

Université de Fribourg

Role of short-range order and hyperuniformity in the formation of band gaps in disordered photonic materials

Froufe-Pérez, Luis S. ; Engel, Michael ; Damasceno, Pablo F. ; Muller, Nicolas ; Haberko, Jakub ; Glotzer, Sharon C. ; Scheffold, Frank

In: Physical Review Letters, 2016, vol. 117, no. 5, p. 053902

We study photonic band gap formation in two-dimensional high-refractive-index disordered materials where the dielectric structure is derived from packing disks in real and reciprocal space. Numerical calculations of the photonic density of states demonstrate the presence of a band gap for all polarizations in both cases. We find that the band gap width is controlled by the increase in...