The paper introduces a pathway-first construction for freeform photonic interconnects in nearly hyperuniform dielectric slabs. Fixed, staggered offset points are embedded in a background relaxed under a periodic repulsive potential, then tessellated into dielectric networks. Finite-difference time-domain simulations predict low excess routing loss for specific designs within a confined-mode spectral window. Silicon near-infrared transmission and scaled ceramic microwave measurements support guided transport; microwave field mapping shows confinement along a curved route. Low-loss operation req

What if a photonic chip could be built around the route you want light to take?

This research starts with a curve—then grows a carefully disordered network around it.

Conceptual graphical abstract · inspired by the paper’s pathway-first designs

A network that fits the journey.

Photonic circuits carry information with light. But a regular photonic crystal comes with preferred directions: its repeating pattern helps dictate where a waveguide can go.

Amoah and colleagues reverse the design order. Choose the optical path first. Arrange points alongside it, let the surrounding points settle, and turn the pattern into connected dielectric walls. Fill the central holes to make a solid guiding channel.

The result is a freeform route embedded in a nearly hyperuniform network: locally irregular, yet remarkably even at larger scales.

Move the path. Watch the world follow.

Drag the three bright control points. The channel bends and its neighboring cells reorganize in real time.

Make room for light.

Move a point up or down with these sliders—or drag in any direction on the network.

Dielectric walls surround filled central cells.

Building point pattern…

Implements Approach 3 and the periodic repulsive potential of Eq. (4): seven offset layers per side, fixed path points, random energy-lowering moves, then nearest-neighbor relaxation. The 40a × 40a domain contains 1,600 points; this view crops its top and bottom edges. Browser relaxation uses a finite number of sweeps; “Relax further” continues it. This geometry construction does not calculate transmission; moving light marks the route.

Prescribe the path

Approach 3 samples even offset curves at equal arc-length intervals. On odd curves, it projects adjacent-point midpoints from the preceding even curve to the closest position. Seven layers on each side stay fixed during relaxation.

Let the background settle

Random background points interact through U = Σ 1/r⁴, with distances wrapping across a periodic square. Only moves that lower the energy are accepted. A local nearest-neighbor relaxation follows (Section 3, Eq. 4).

Build the dielectric network

A centroidal tessellation connects neighboring triangle centers into a trivalent network. Walls have width 0.4a; filling the cells along line 0 creates the solid guiding channel.

Disorder with a guiding role.

Nearly hyperuniform does not mean random everywhere. Large-scale density fluctuations are strongly suppressed, even though the cells do not repeat periodically.

In the slab, an in-plane photonic pseudo-gap suppresses sideways propagation over a frequency window. The slab’s refractive-index contrast helps confine light vertically.

One strategy. Two physical scales.

The authors combine numerical tests with silicon devices in the near infrared and larger ceramic structures at microwave frequencies.

A small routing penalty

For the simulated tanh connector, this is the typical additional loss relative to a straight reference in the identified low-loss window near a/λ ≈ 0.29.

The number describes a specific design and spectral window, not every possible curve.

Freeform paths on a chip

Fabricated silicon networks use a characteristic spacing of 460 nm. Transmission spectra are measured using a 1525–1620 nm laser.

These insertion measurements include coupling losses and sample only part of the predicted guided window.

See where the wave goes

Alumina slabs with a 5 mm characteristic spacing make the network large enough to probe the field directly.

Transmission and spatial field maps support confinement along the freeform route in the measured guiding window.

The field follows the bend.

A probe scanned the electric-field amplitude above the ceramic sample. The bright curved band shows the field concentrated along the designed tanh interconnect for a typical guided mode.

This is a measured microwave field map, overlaid with the slab’s designed network. Color shows electric-field amplitude in arbitrary units.

Design the connection. Then the surroundings.

A pathway-first platform could give integrated photonics more freedom to connect components with different orientations and local symmetries. The promise is a more flexible vocabulary for compact circuits—grounded here in specific simulated and fabricated routes.

Freeform Light Routing in Nearly-Hyperuniform Slabs: Toward a General-Purpose Design Platform for Integrated Photonics ↗

Timothy Amoah, Ali Vafa, Georgios Gkantzounis, Chenglong Wan, Kapil Debnath, Frédéric Gardès, Milan Milosevic, Weining Man, and Marian Florescu.

Advanced Optical Materials · 2026 · DOI: 10.1002/adom.71768

Research © 2026 The Authors, published by Wiley-VCH GmbH under a Creative Commons Attribution License. Graphical abstract: AI-generated conceptual adaptation informed by Figure 2. Interactive diagrams are explanatory reconstructions.