Effects of polarization on the transmission and localization of classical waves in weakly scattering metamaterials

TL;DR

This study investigates how polarization influences the Anderson localization of classical waves in one-dimensional weakly scattering metamaterials, revealing angle-dependent localization behaviors and polarization-specific effects.

Contribution

It extends previous theoretical work to off-axis incidence and analyzes localization length asymptotics for various disorder types and angles, including the Brewster anomaly.

Findings

Localization length varies with angle and wavelength.

P-polarized waves are strongly localized in mixed stacks.

Localization is suppressed for s-polarization in certain conditions.

Abstract

We summarize the results of our comprehensive analytical and numerical studies of the effects of polarization on the Anderson localization of classical waves in one-dimensional random stacks. We consider homogeneous stacks composed entirely of normal materials or metamaterials, and also mixed stacks composed of alternating layers of a normal material and metamaterial. We extend the theoretical study developed earlier for the case of normal incidence [A. A. Asatryan et al, Phys. Rev. B 81, 075124 (2010)] to the case of off-axis incidence. For the general case where both the refractive indices and layer thicknesses are random, we obtain the long-wave and short-wave asymptotics of the localization length over a wide range of incidence angles (including the Brewster ``anomaly'' angle). At the Brewster angle, we show that the long-wave localization length is proportional to the square of the wavelength, as for the case of normal incidence, but with a proportionality coefficient substantially larger than that for normal incidence. In mixed stacks with only refractive-index disorder, we demonstrate that p-polarized waves are strongly localized, while for s-polarization the localization is substantially suppressed, as in the case of normal incidence. In the case of only thickness disorder, we study also the transition from localization to delocalization at the Brewster angle.