Abstract
The possibility of Anderson localization of light in disordered media has been intriguing the optics community for several decades. Experimental verification of the localization phenomenon, however, turns out to be quite elusive [1]. One difficulty is a weak scattering of electromagnetic waves at both low and high frequencies. Another significant obstacle is the presence of absorption, which mimics the exponential reduction of transmission with increasing sample size, characteristic for localization, and always casts doubts on experimental claims that such a decrease is due to localization. [1] A way around the first of these difficulties was proposed by S. John [2], who suggested that by distorting randomly an originally periodic photonic structure, one can facilitate the localization of light at frequencies close to the band boundaries of the initial periodic structure. Moreover, disorder introduced in an originally periodic structure can give rise to localized states of light inside the band gaps of the initial spectrum. These states would be analogous to Lifshitz tail states in semiconductors. A method to circumvent the absorption related problems was suggested in Ref. [3], where it was proposed to measure statistical characteristics of transmitted light in order to observe the transition to localized states.
© 2003 Optical Society of America
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