Discrete Anderson Speckle

Abstract

When a disordered array of coupled waveguides is illuminated with an extended coherent optical field, discrete speckle develops: partially coherent light with a granular intensity distribution on the lattice sites. The same paradigm applies to a variety of other settings in photonics, such as imperfectly coupled resonators or fibers with randomly coupled cores. Through numerical simulations and analytical modeling, we uncover a set of surprising features that characterize discrete speckle in one- and two-dimensional lattices known to exhibit transverse Anderson localization. Firstly, the fingerprint of localization is embedded in the fluctuations of the discrete speckle and is revealed in the narrowing of the spatial coherence function. Secondly, the transverse coherence length (or speckle grain size) is frozen during propagation. Thirdly, the axial coherence depth is independent of the axial position, thereby resulting in a coherence voxel of fixed volume independently of position. We take these unique features collectively to define a distinct regime that we call discrete Anderson speckle.

8 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Direct observation of Anderson localization of matter-waves in a controlled disorder
• Non-invasive real-time imaging through scattering layers and around corners via speckle correlations
• Quantum walks of correlated particles
• Localization of ultrasound in a three-dimensional elastic network
• Experimental observation of strong photon localization in disordered photonic crystal waveguides
• Noninvasive nonlinear imaging through strongly-scattering turbid layers

Cited by in corpus (6)

• A photonic thermalization gap in disordered lattices
• Sub-thermal to super-thermal light statistics from a disordered lattice via deterministic control of excitation symmetry
• Lattice topology dictates photon statistics
• Interferometric control of the photon-number distribution
• Hanbury Brown and Twiss anticorrelation in disordered photonic lattices
• Can a photonic thermalization gap arise in disordered non-Hermitian Hamiltonian systems?