  Artificially fabricated structures with periodically modulated parameters
such as photonic crystals offer novel ways of controlling the flow of light due
to the existence of a range of forbidden frequencies associated with a photonic
bandgap. It is believed that modulation of the refractive index in all three
spatial dimensions is required to open a complete bandgap and prevent the
propagation of electromagnetic waves in all directions. Here we reveal that, in
a sharp contrast to what was known before and contrary to the accepted physical
intuition, a one-dimensional periodic structure containing the layers of
transparent left-handed (or negative-index) metamaterial can trap light in
three-dimensional space due to the existence of a complete bandgap.
