Abstract Photonic crystals made with more than two materials have been attracting increasing attention due to their peculiar optical properties. In this work, we present a theoretical analysis, by using the transfer matrix method, of one dimensional photonic crystals made of four different materials. A new photonic band gap is observed with respect to conventional one dimensional photonic crystals. Furthermore, we discuss the strong influence that the material permutations plays on the intensity and the shape of the photonic band gaps of the proposed structure.