Gyromorphs merge order and disorder to deliver unprecedented light-blocking power for next-generation photonic computers.
Researchers are exploring a new generation of computers that operate using light, or photons, instead of electrical currents. Systems that rely on light to store and process information could one day run far more efficiently and complete calculations much faster than conventional machines.
Light-driven computing is still at an early stage, and one of the main technical obstacles involves controlling tiny streams of light traveling through a chip. Rerouting these microscopic signals without weakening them requires carefully engineered materials. To keep signals strong, the hardware must include a lightweight substance that prevents stray light from entering from any direction. This type of material is known as an “isotropic bandgap material.”
Discovery of Gyromorphs at NYU
Scientists at New York University have identified a new material called “gyromorphs” that meets this challenge more effectively than any other known structure. Gyromorphs combine features normally associated with liquids and crystals, yet they exceed both in their ability to block incoming light from all angles. The discovery, reported in Physical Review Letters, introduces a fresh strategy for tuning optical behavior and could help advance the development of photonic computers.
“Gyromorphs are unlike any known structure in that their unique makeup gives rise to better isotropic bandgap materials than is possible with current approaches,” says Stefano Martiniani, an assistant professor of physics, chemistry, mathematics and neural science, and the senior author of the study.
Why Existing Materials Fall Short
For decades, researchers have looked to quasicrystals when designing isotropic bandgap materials. These structures, first proposed by physicists Paul Steinhardt and Dov Levine in the 1980s and later observed by Dan Schechtman, follow mathematical rules but do not repeat like traditional crystals.
Despite their promise, quasicrystals come with a trade-off noted by the NYU team. They may completely block light, but only from limited directions. Alternatively, they can weaken light from all directions but fail to fully stop it. This limitation has driven scientists to search for alternatives that can block signal-degrading light more comprehensively.
Engineering New Metamaterials
In their Physical Review Letters study, the NYU researchers created “metamaterials,” which are engineered structures whose properties depend on their architecture rather than on their chemical composition. One major challenge in designing these materials lies in understanding how their arrangement leads to desired physical behaviors.
To overcome this, the team developed an algorithm capable of producing functional structures with built-in disorder. Their work revealed a new form of “correlated disorder” that sits between the fully ordered and fully random extremes.
“Think of trees in a forest — they grow at random positions, but not completely random because they’re usually a certain distance from one another,” Martiniani explains. “This new pattern, gyromorphs, combines properties that we believed to be incompatible and displays a function that outperforms all ordered alternatives, including quasicrystals.”
How Gyromorphs Achieve Their Unique Capabilities
During their analysis, the scientists observed that every isotropic bandgap material exhibited a shared structural signature.
“We wanted to make this structural signature as pronounced as possible,” says Mathias Casiulis, a postdoctoral fellow in NYU’s Department of Physics and the paper’s lead author. “The result was a new class of materials — gyromorphs — that reconcile seemingly incompatible features.
“This is because gyromorphs don’t have a fixed, repeating structure like a crystal, which gives them a liquid-like disorder, but, at the same time, if you look at them from a distance they form regular patterns. These properties work together to create bandgaps that lightwaves can’t penetrate from any direction.”
The research also included Aaron Shih, an NYU graduate student, and received support from the Simons Center for Computational Physical Chemistry (839534) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-25-1-0359)
