Light Localisation : Anderson and beyond – LiLoA

Localization of light in three-dimensional disordered samples has been
elusive up to date, with several initial experimental reports,
followed a few years later by their re-interpretation. While
absorption and nonlinear effects may be to blame for erroneous
interpretations of these early experiments, later theoretical insights predict that near field dipole dipole coupling terms in 3D actually can prevent
localization. However novel elegant solutions have emerged recently, but still need to be implemented in experiments.


This project addresses Anderson localization of light in cold atom
systems, gathering the experimental and theoretical efforts from,
respectively, the French and Brazilian partners. The first objective
is to determine how to induce localization of light in atomic samples
by introducing, for example, diagonal disorder or positional
correlations. The second objective is to determine unambiguous
signatures for localization, investigating in particular the profile
of the transmitted light and the propagation of the excitations in the
system. The last objective is to identify how the presence of several
photons/excitations in the cloud, instead of a single one for the
Anderson regime, will affect localization: This represents a first
step toward the many-body regime.