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Abstract
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By preparing colloidal crystals with random missing scatterers, crystals are created where disorder is embodied as vacancies in an otherwise perfect lattice. In this special system, there is a critical defect concentration where light propagation undergoes a transition from an all but perfect reflector (for the spectral range defined by the Bragg condition), to a metamaterial exhibiting an enhanced transmission phenomenon. It is shown that this behavior can be phenomenologically described in terms of Fano-like resonances. The results show that the Fano's parameter q experiences a sign change signaling the transition from a perfect crystal exhibiting a reflectance Bragg peak, through a state where background scattering is maximum and Bragg reflectance reaches a minimum to a point where the system reenters a low scattering state recovering ordinary Bragg diffraction. A simple dipolar model considering the correlation between scatterers and vacancies is proposed and the reported evolution of the Fano-like scattering is explained in terms of the emerging covariance between the optical paths and polarizabilities and the effect of field enhancement in photonic crystal (PhC) defects.
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