Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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DF: Fachverband Dielektrische Festkörper

DF 13: Poster II: Electrical, mechanical and optical properties, nonlinear dielectrics

DF 13.6: Poster

Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 15:00–17:30, Poster A

Photonic Band Structure Analysis of Bi- and Multicontinuous Structures — •Matthias Saba and Gerd Schröder-Turk — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Staudtstr. 7B, 91058 Erlangen, Germany

Photonic crystals based on triply-periodic minimal surfaces have recently attracted attention because of their occurence in biological systems, e.g. in butterfly scales or beatle shells. Here we analyse the photonic band structure of bicontinuous surface models (dividing space into two intertwined continuous network domains) and multicontinuous surface models (with three or more continuous network domains), with and without chirality, that are models for self-assembled biological or chemical structures. Triply-periodic surfaces with constant mean curvature H₀ are generated by numerical minimization of a surface energy functional ∫dS(H(r)−H₀)². One or more of these surfaces divide space into interpenetrating networks which are filled with materials of different dielectric constants. The band structures of the resulting bi- and multicontinuous photonic crystals are computed by the frequency domain eigensolver MPB. The aim of this work is to find structures with complete band gaps.