Bandgapmaxxing: Engineering Photonic Bandgaps in Disordered Metamaterials

We introduce a new class of materials, termed Gyromorphs, that exhibit high rotational order at a fixed length scale, while maintaining short-range translational disorder.

Using a coupled dipoles approximation, we show that these structures form complete, isotropic bandgaps arising from peak-like features in their structure factors.

Bandgaps formed by gyromorphs are deeper and wider than those formed by high-order quasicrystals, stealthy hyperuniformity, and Vogel spirals, for both scalar and vector waves in both 2d and 3d.

Finally, we introduce “polygyromorphs” with several rotational symmetries at multiple fixed length scales, enabling the formation of multiple bandgaps in a single structure, thereby paving the way for fine control over optical properties.