Walk dimension for light in complex disordered media

Abstract

Transport in complex systems is characterized by a fractal dimension -- the walk dimension -- that indicates the diffusive or anomalous nature of the underlying random walk process. Here we report on the experimental retrieval of this key quantity, using light waves propagating in disordered media. The approach is based on measurements of the time-resolved transmission, in particular on how the lifetime scales with sample size. We show that this allows one to retrieve the walk dimension and apply the concept to samples with varying degree of fractal heterogeneity. In addition, the method provides the first experimental demonstration of anomalous light dynamics in a random medium.

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Lévy walks
• Optical properties of periodic, quasi-periodic, and disordered one-dimensional photonic structures
• Light in correlated disordered media
• Spatio-temporal visualization of light transport in complex photonic structures
• $\mu$-diff: an open-source Matlab toolbox for computing multiple scattering problems by disks
• Signatures of Lévy flights with annealed disorder
• Lévy flights of photons with infinite mean free path
• The influence of a power law distribution of cluster size on the light transmission of disordered 1D photonic structures
• Breakdown of self-similarity in light transport