Eur. Phys. J. B (2014) 87: 149
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2014-50164-7

Regular Article

The eight-fold way for optical quasicrystals

¹ Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay, France
² Centre de Physique Théorique, Ecole Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau, France

^a e-mail: jagannathan@lps.u-psud.fr

Received: 11 March 2014
Received in final form: 7 May 2014
Published online: 2 July 2014

Abstract

In a recent paper we proposed a means to realize a quasicrystal with eight-fold symmetry by trapping particles in an optical potential created by four lasers. The quasicrystals obtained in this way, which are closely related to the well-known octagonal tiling, offer unique possibilities to study the effects of quasiperiodicity on physical properties. This method allows, furthermore, to transform the structures, to inflate or deflate them, include interactions or disorder and thus realize a large variety of theoretical models, both classical and quantum. In this paper we present details of the model, derive a number of interesting geometrical properties of the optical quasicrystals, as well as some results obtained by numerical calculations.