Photonic gap in amorphous photonic materials

Two-dimensional amorphous photonic materials are created, which do not possess any long-range order but have only short-range order. Our calculation of the multiple-scattering method shows that, for S-polarized waves, these materials have photonic gap that is independent of incident directions. Even though the detailed structures of amorphous photonic materials are different with each other, they possess a common photonic gap, if only they have the same short-range order. Based on our studies it may be confirmed that, for S-polarized waves, the first band gap of photonic crystals comes mainly from the short-range order, while the higher-order band gaps are related to the long-range order. The measured transmission spectrum of an amorphous photonic material agrees perfectly with the calculation.