Photonic Properties of Icosahedral Quasicrystals

Photonic band gap materials are structures that completely reflect a particular color of light independent of the incident direction. If the light is placed inside a photonic band gap structure it never gets out even if the material used to build the structure is transparent! The search for such materials has fascinated physicists and engineers for decades. Trapped light is controlled light, and controlled light can be directed, switched and processed like electrons in an electronic circuit.
We guessed that Quasicrystals – intriguing high symmetric geometrical objects - that are neither periodic nor random - might be good candidates. But such 3D structures are too complex to model using computers. To circumvent the mathematical problem we made an actual polymer model of an icosahedral (20 –faced) quasicrystal and probed it with microwaves. We discovered that these structures have a surprisingly simple, almost spherical gap structure (Brillouin Zone) and are the most promising complete photonic bandgap structure found to date.