Photonic and phononic quasicrystals

• Published in: Journal of physics. D, Applied physics Applied physics, 2007-07, Vol.40 (13), p.R229-R247
• Main Authors: Steurer, Walter, Sutter-Widmer, Daniel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Optical materials; Optics; Photonic bandgap materials; Physics
• ISSN: 0022-3727; 1361-6463
• DOI: 10.1088/0022-3727/40/13/R01

This review focuses on the peculiarities of quasiperiodic order for the properties of photonic and phononic (sonic) heterostructures. The most beneficial feature of quasiperiodicity is that it can combine perfectly ordered structures with purely point-diffractive spectra of arbitrarily high rotational symmetry. Both are prerequisites for the construction of isotropic band gap composites, in particular from materials with low index contrast, which are required for numerous applications. Another interesting property of quasiperiodic structures is their scaling symmetry, which may be exploited to create spectral gaps in the sub-wavelength regime. This review covers structure/property relationships of heterostructures based on one-dimensional (1D) substitutional sequences such as the Fibonacci, Thue-Morse, period-doubling, Rudin-Shapiro and Cantor sequence as well as on 1D modulated structures, further on 2D tilings with 8-, 10-, 12- and 14-fold symmetry as well as on the pinwheel tiling, the Sierpinski gasket and on curvilinear tilings and, finally, on the 3D icosahedral Penrose tiling.