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Bandgap Engineering

Quasicrystals enter third dimension

Nature Photonics volume 1, pages 91–92 (2007)Cite this article

Advances in laser-based fabrication technology have resulted in the construction of the first three-dimensional silicon photonic quasicrystals that operate in the infrared.

Photonic crystals are man-made structures designed to control and confine light. In 1987, Eli Yablonovitch1 and Sajeev John2 suggested that three-dimensional (3D) structured dielectric materials with a periodicity of the order of a wavelength can in principle possess a 'photonic bandgap' — a range of frequencies where light propagation in any direction is forbidden. Such structures, which are now commonly called photonic crystals, hold the enticing promise of creating light-emitting devices with improved light extraction, low-threshold lasers and optical integrated circuits, and have been the topic of much research.

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Figure 1: A two-dimensional quasicrystal motif that has eight-fold rotational symmetry.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Che Ting Chan is in the Department of Physics at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong. phchan@ust.hk,

    Che Ting Chan

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  1. Che Ting Chan
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Chan, C. Quasicrystals enter third dimension. Nature Photon 1, 91–92 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2006.92

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2006.92

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