Good Vibrations

by Joerg Heber Nature Materials Update, 21 Apr 2005 Optical superlattices such as photonic crystals are a convenient way to engineer the band structure of materials, resulting in the formation of mini-bandgaps and allowing control over the propagation of light. Unfortunately, photonic structures are rather static, which means that their optical properties cannot be changed once they have been produced. Maurício Moraes de Lima and colleagues now demonstrate the formation of a dynamic optical superlattice induced by acoustic phonons in a photonic microcavity. Read the article