Design, Fabrication, and Characterisation of Three-Dimensional Photonic Quasicrystals

Photonic structures manipulate the propagation of light by scattering and interference effects. We fabricate and optically characterise high-quality three-dimensional photonic quasicrystals operating at infrared frequencies. They mimic a diffusive behaviour usually known from disordered systems, due to multiple scattering of light. We study icosahedral quasicrystals, known from electronic systems, in both experiment and theory, as well as rhombicuboctahedral ones, a novel class introduced by us.