Anderson localizing optical fibers

5^th International Conference and Exhibition on Lasers, Optics & Photonics

November 28-30, 2016 Atlanta, USA

Arash Mafi

University of New Mexico, USA

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Laser Opt Photonics

Abstract :

Unlike in 3D, where Anderson localization of light is prohibitively difficult to observe, Anderson localization has been observed in quasi-2D optical systems. An optical field that is launched in the longitudinal direction tends to remain localized in the transverse plane as it freely propagates in the longitudinal direction in a transversely random dielectric medium. This behavior has dubbed transverse Anderson localization of light. I will present an overview of our recent theoretical and experimental results regarding the transverse Anderson localization of light in disordered optical fibers. Our research team has reported the first observation of Anderson localization in an optical fiber, beam multiplexing, ultra-bend performance, image transport, wave-front shaping and sharp focusing, nonlocal nonlinear behavior, and single-photon data packing. In particular, I will talk about our recent work on highquality optical image transport in Anderson localizing optical fibers. The highly disordered fiber was initially developed to study the physics of Anderson localization in the optical domain and explore its device applications. The successful observation of Anderson localization in an optical fiber and the subsequent demonstration of beam multiplexing led the research team to explore the possibility of image transport through the disordered fiber. The transported images were observed to be of a comparable or higher quality than the commercially available multicore imaging optical fibers, with less pixelation and higher contrast. It is now understood that the higher image transport quality is achieved in spite of, the high level of disorder and randomness in this optical fiber.

Biography :

Email: mafi@unm.edu