Designer disordered materials with large complete photonic band gaps

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to design large, isotropic disordered photonic materials with complete band gaps using hyperuniform point patterns and constrained optimization, challenging the need for long-range order.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel design approach for disordered photonic materials with complete band gaps based on hyperuniformity and constrained optimization.

Findings

Largest band gaps achieved with hyperuniform disordered patterns

Hyperuniformity explains the possibility of complete band gaps without long-range order

Implications for electronic and phononic band gaps in disordered materials

Abstract

We present designs of 2D isotropic, disordered photonic materials of arbitrary size with complete band gaps blocking all directions and polarizations. The designs with the largest gaps are obtained by a constrained optimization method that starts from a hyperuniform disordered point pattern, an array of points whose number variance within a spherical sampling window grows more slowly than the volume. We argue that hyperuniformity, combined with uniform local topology and short-range geometric order, can explain how complete photonic band gaps are possible without long-range translational order. We note the ramifications for electronic and phononic band gaps in disordered materials.