AbstractThe existence of photonic stop bands in macroporous silicon with a quasi‐random structure transferred from nanoporous anodic alumina is studied. The quasi‐random structure consists of a periodic triangular arrangement broken into domains of random orientation and size. By means of Finite‐Difference Time‐Domain simulation, transmittance spectra of the structure are calculated which show that stop bands exist for the TE polarization in the same frequency range it exist for periodic photonic crystals. For TM polarization local minima of the transmittance are predicted by the calculations. A general trend of the transmittance to decrease with increasing frequency is observed. The comparison with the transmittance for random structures shows that such trend is due to incoherent scattering caused by the degree of randomness of the structure (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)