Abstract
The consequences of a nonconservative environment on the transport of photons under conditions of Anderson localization in a disordered system are a topic of great interest. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the systematic decrease in the localization length of a quasi-one-dimensional localizing system when gain is added to it. We quantify the generalized conductance of the system using the variance of the fluctuations in the localized eigenfunctions and show a decrease in conductance with gain. We theoretically model this system using a combination of transfer matrix calculations and rate equations for a two-level lasing system and find very good qualitative agreement with the experimental results. We show that the generalized conductance in higher disorder can be emulated in weak disorder using the appropriate gain. The decreasing conductance is explained using the reduced probability of outcoupling of photons relative to their peak position within the system.
© 2020 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Sandip Mondal and Sushil Mujumdar
Opt. Lett. 45(4) 997-1000 (2020)
Diego Guzman-Silva, Matthias Heinrich, Tobias Biesenthal, Yaroslav V. Kartashov, and Alexander Szameit
Opt. Lett. 45(2) 415-418 (2020)
Matthew Tuggle, Cody Bassett, Thomas W. Hawkins, Roger Stolen, Arash Mafi, and John Ballato
Opt. Lett. 45(3) 599-602 (2020)