Photonic Band Gap materials: Light control at will

Photonic Band Gap (PBG) materials [1,2] are artificial, periodic, dielectrics that enable engineering of the most fundamental properties of electromagnetic waves. These include the laws of refraction, diffraction, and spontaneous emission of light. Unlike traditional semiconductors that rely on the propagation of electrons through an atomic lattice, PBG materials execute their novel functions through selective trapping or “localization of light” [3]. This is a fundamentally new and largely unexplored property of Maxwell´s equations. This is also of practical importance for all optical communications, information processing, efficient lighting, and solar energy trapping.