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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Fabrication of 1-D Photonic Crystal Cavity on a Nanofiber Using Femtosecond Laser-induced Ablation
Published on: February 25, 2017
Inducing symmetry breaking in nanostructures: anisotropic stretch-tuning photonic crystals
Andreas Kontogeorgos1, David R E Snoswell, Chris E Finlayson
1Department of Physics, Cavendish Laboratory University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom. ak583@cam.ac.uk
Abstract:
We use elastically induced phase transitions to break the structural symmetry of self-assembled nanostructures, producing significantly modified functional properties. Stretching ordered polymer opals in different directions transforms the fcc photonic crystal into correspondingly distorted monoclinic lattices. This breaks the conventional selection rules for scattering from the crystal planes, yielding extra multiply scattered colors when the phase-breaking stretch is in specific directions. Scattering is spectroscopically tracked in real time as the samples distort, revealing a new phase transition that appears for <121>-oriented deformations.
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