The photonic band structure of a face-centered-cubic lattice of spheres is calculated using the plane-wave method for Maxwell’s equations. Comparisons with the available experimental results show rather good agreement, except that we do not find a true gap for this configuration. This we believe is due to symmetry reasons at the W point.

• Received 17 April 1990

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.65.2646