Hyperuniformity

Hyperuniformity: Photonic Bandgap materials and Anderson Localization of light.

Hyperuniformity has been suggested as a new design principle for a special kind of ‘hidden’ order that was claimed to lead to significantly improved photonic bandgap materials in 2009. One of our research-thrusts is the mesoscale fabrication, characterization and modelling of hyperuniform photonic bandgap materials. In early 2013 and in 2014 we could report the first 3D silicon high refractive index network material with a notable bandgap in the shortwave infrared made by direct laser writing templating. In the meantime, we have also fully replicated the polymer templates using the silicon double inversion approach (Optica 4, 2017). These projects are based on our earlier research on photonic materials with short range liquid-like order starting in 2004 (Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 073903) and our expertise in strong multiple scattering and Anderson localization of light (see also our recent comment in Nature Photon. 7, 934 (2013)). In 2017, based on numerical simulations of transport statistics, we succeeded to identify all relevant regimes in a 2D system: transparency, photon diffusion, classical Anderson localization, band gap, and a pseudogap tunneling regime. We proposed a transport phase diagram that organizes optical transport properties in disordered media. We are currently extending this numerical study to the case of 3D transport. Some of the research is (or has been) carried out in collaboration with colleagues at the Donostia International Physics Center, University of Nice, University of Michigan and the University of Erlangen.

· L.S. Froufe-Pérez, M. Engel, J.J. Sáenz, F. Scheffold, Band gap formation and Anderson localization in disordered photonic materials with structural correlations, PNAS, 114 (36), 05130 (2017)

· N. Muller, J. Haberko, C. Marichy, F. Scheffold, Photonic hyperuniform networks obtained by silicon double inversion of polymer templates, Optica 4 (3), 361-366 (2017)

· L. S. Froufe-Pérez, M. Engel, P. F. Damasceno, N. Muller, J. Haberko, S. C. Glotzer, and F. Scheffold, Role of short-range order and hyperuniformity in the formation of band gaps in disordered photonic materials, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 053902 (2016)

· L.F. Rochas, J.M. Mendez Alcazar, J.J. Saenz, P. Schurtenberger and F. Scheffold, Photonic properties of strongly correlated colloidal liquids, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 073903 (2004)