The study and exploitation of disorder is a vital research area in the broader field of material science. Structural and compositional randomness is ubiquitous in nature and is often a key tool for specific purposes such as mimicry or coloring. The benefits of disorder are a useful guide in engineering and in visionary developments of novel advanced materials with unexpected and surprising properties. The general subject of disorder is rapidly emerging into an area of interdisciplinary scientific interest, which is, however, still in its infancy. Especially in optics and photonics, the disordered natural structures still bear surprises, and tailored disorder promises properties unachievable by regular design.

To accommodate recent developments in the field of disordered materials in optics and photonics, the purpose of the 2^nd Disordered Materials 2023 (DisoMAT) conference is to bring together experts from various scientific communities, such as biology, chemistry, physics, and material scientists to advance the field of disordered optical materials by combining fundamental and applied research with emphasis on multidisciplinary approaches and processing routes. Contributions from the fields of theoretical, computational, and applied physics, theoretical and experimental biology, chemistry, and material science are envisioned to be combined. The development of novel approaches and design routes to utilize and realize tailored disorder in optical materials will be one of the main topics of this conference.

The focus of the 2^nd Disordered Materials 2023 conference will be on disordered materials in optics and photonics. It is by now accepted that optical media do not necessarily have to be regular. Quite in contrast, photonic materials with deliberately introduced disorder in their respective geometries and compositions show interesting novel and unforeseen tunable properties. These aspects shall be showcased at the conference.

International experts will give keynote/invited lectures about tailored disorder applications in nano-optics and -photonics. Thus, the three-day conference is a discussion panel for researchers, manufacturers, and users of materials with interesting novel and tunable properties. During the conference, the best three posters will be honored.