Photonic Amorphous Diamond Structure with a 3D Photonic Band Gap

We report that a full three-dimensional (3D) photonic band gap (PBG) is formed in a photonic amorphous structure in spite of complete lack of lattice periodicity. It is numerically shown that the structure “photonic amorphous diamond” possesses a sizable 3D PBG (18% of the center frequency for Si-air dielectric contrast) and that it can confine light at a defect as strongly as conventional photonic crystals can. These findings present important new insight into the origin of 3D PBG formation and open new possibilities in developing 3D PBG materials.