An eight-fold optical quasicrystal with cold atoms

Abstract

We propose a means to realize two-dimensional quasiperiodic structures by trapping atoms in an optical potential. The structures have eight-fold symmetry and are closely related to the well-known quasiperiodic octagonal (Ammann-Beenker) tiling. We describe the geometrical properties of the structures obtained by tuning parameters of the system. We discuss some features of the corresponding tight-binding models, and experiments to probe quantum properties of this optical quasicrystal.