Diffusion in translucent media
arXiv:1802.04437 · doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04242-4
Abstract
Diffusion is the result of repeated random scattering. It governs a wide range of phenomena from Brownian motion, to heat flow through window panes, neutron flux in fuel rods, dispersion of light in human tissue, and electronic conduction. It is universally acknowledged that the diffusion approach to describing wave transport fails in translucent samples thinner than the distance between scattering events such as are encountered in meteorology, astronomy, biomedicine and communications. Here we show in optical measurements and numerical simulations that the scaling of transmission and the intensity profiles of transmission eigenchannels have the same form in translucent as in opaque media. Paradoxically, the similarities in transport across translucent and opaque samples explain the puzzling observations of suppressed optical and ultrasonic delay times relative to predictions of diffusion theory well into the diffusive regime.
arXiv comment30 pages, 5 figures
References in corpus (18)
- Random-Matrix Theory of Quantum Transport
- Measuring the Transmission Matrix in Optics : An Approach to the Study and Control of Light Propagation in Disordered Media
- Multiple scattering of classical waves: from microscopy to mesoscopy and diffusion
- Light fields in complex media: mesoscopic scattering meets wave control
- Translation correlations in anisotropically scattering media
- Direct determination of the transition to localization of light in three dimensions
- Filtering Random Matrices: The Effect of Incomplete Channel Control in Multiple Scattering
- Spatio-temporal Control of Light Transmission through a Multimode Fiber with Strong Mode Coupling
- Full transmission and reflection of waves propagating through a maze of disorder
- Transmission eigenvalues and the bare conductance in the crossover to Anderson localization
- Control of energy density inside disordered medium by coupling to open or closed channels
- Extended quasimodes within nominally localized random waveguides
- Transmission eigenchannels and the densities of states of random media
- General relation between state density and dwell times in mesoscopic systems
- Spatio-temporal visualization of light transport in complex photonic structures
- Spatio-Temporal Imaging of Light Transport in Highly Scattering Media under White Light Illumination
- Controlling transmission eigenchannels in random media by edge reflection
- Diffusion of light in semitransparent media
Cited by in corpus (5)
- Customized anti-reflection structure for perfect transmission through complex media
- Mesoscopic Theory of Wavefront Shaping to Focus Waves inside Disordered Media
- Reflection Measurement of the Scattering Mean Free Path at the Onset of Multiple Scattering
- Time delay in 1D disordered media with high transmission
- Universal and nonuniversal statistics of transmission in thin random layered media