Observation of Spatial Fluctuations of the Local Density of States in Random Media

TL;DR

This study experimentally investigates how the local density of states varies spatially within three-dimensional random photonic media by measuring emission rate fluctuations of fluorescent nanospheres, aligning well with a nearest-scatterer model.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed experimental analysis of LDOS fluctuations in 3D random media and validates a simple theoretical model based on the nearest scatterer.

Findings

Spatial fluctuations of emission rates are observed inside the media.

Variance of fluctuations matches the nearest-scatterer model.

Results enhance understanding of light behavior in disordered media.

Abstract

We experimentally study spatial fluctuations of the local density of states (LDOS) inside three-dimensional random photonic media. The LDOS is probed at many positions inside the random photonic media by measuring emission rates of a large number of individual fluorescent nanospheres. The emission rates are observed to fluctuate spatially. We analyze the variance of these fluctuations for samples with different scattering strengths. The measured variance of the emission rates agrees well with a model that takes into account the effect of the nearest scatterer only.