NYU Scientists Discover "Gyromorph" Materials to Revolutionize Light-Based Computing

Credit: The Martiniani lab at NYU

New York University researchers have uncovered a breakthrough class of materials called "gyromorphs" that could solve a fundamental challenge in light-based computing. The innovative materials combine liquid-like disorder with crystal-like regularity t create the most effective "isotropic bandgap material" ever discovered—capable of blocking microscopic light signals from all directions with unprecedented efficiency.

This discovery addresses a critical bottleneck in photonic computing, where the inability to control light signals without significant strength loss has hampered development. Light-based computers promise dramatic advantages over traditional electronics, including potentially greater energy efficiency and significantly faster calculation speeds, but have remained in their infancy due to materials limitations.

"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 at NYU, and the paper's senior author. The research, published in Physical Review Letters, represents a fundamental advance in how scientists can control optical properties at microscopic scales.

The breakthrough emerged from an algorithmic approach to designing "metamaterials"—engineered substances whose properties come from their structural arrangement rather than chemical composition. Traditional approaches to creating isotropic bandgap materials have relied on quasicrystals, first conceived in the 1980s and recognized with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011. However, quasicrystals present an unfortunate trade-off: they either block light completely from limited directions or weakly attenuate it from all directions.

NYU researchers developed a computational method to design disordered yet functional structures, leading to the unexpected discovery of gyromorphs. "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," explains Martiniani. "This new pattern, gyromorphs, combines properties that we believed to be incompatible."

What makes gyromorphs particularly remarkable is their ability to exhibit "correlated disorder"—a state between complete randomness and perfect order. Mathias Casiulis, a postdoctoral fellow in NYU's Department of Physics and the paper's lead author, noted the significance: "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."

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The research team discovered that all effective isotropic bandgap materials shared a common structural signature. By maximizing this signature through their algorithm, they created gyromorphs that outperform all known alternatives, including sophisticated quasicrystals. The materials work by creating bandgaps that lightwaves cannot penetrate from any direction—exactly the property needed for efficient photonic computing.

The implications extend beyond immediate computing applications. The methodology of designing materials with correlated disorder could revolutionize how scientists approach materials science problems more broadly. Rather than relying on traditional crystal structures or completely random arrangements, researchers can now engineer materials with precisely tuned degrees of disorder to achieve specific functions.

For the future of computing, this breakthrough could accelerate the development of practical photonic systems that use light instead of electricity for calculations. Such systems could dramatically reduce energy consumption in data centers—a growing concern as artificial intelligence and cloud computing demand more power—while enabling processing speeds that are physically impossible with current electronic technology.

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The discovery also demonstrates the power of computational materials design. By developing algorithms to explore structural possibilities beyond human intuition, the NYU team uncovered a material class that reconciles what were previously considered incompatible properties. This approach could lead to further unexpected discoveries in other areas of materials science and engineering.

As light-based computing continues to evolve, gyromorphs may become fundamental components in the photonic chips of tomorrow. The materials' ability to precisely control light propagation at microscopic scales addresses one of the last major hurdles in creating practical, scalable photonic computing systems that could eventually complement or even replace traditional electronic computers for specific applications.