Image transport through a disordered optical fiber mediated by transverse Anderson localization

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first use of transverse Anderson localization in disordered optical fibers for high-quality image transport, showing promising results for medical imaging applications.

Contribution

It presents the first experimental demonstration of optical image transport via transverse Anderson localization in disordered fibers, with potential for improved imaging technologies.

Findings

Image transport quality comparable or better than commercial multicore fibers

Disordered polymer fiber achieves high contrast and low pixelation

Potential for further improvement with glass-based fibers with air-hole structures

Abstract

Transverse Anderson localization of light allows localized optical-beam-transport through a transversely-disordered and longitudinally-invariant medium. Its successful implementation in disordered optical fibers recently resulted in the propagation of localized beams of radii comparable with that of conventional optical fibers. We present what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first demonstration of optical image transport using transverse Anderson localization of light. The image transport quality obtained in the polymer disordered optical fiber is comparable with or better than some of the best commercially available multicore image fibers with less pixelation and higher contrast. It is argued that considerable improvement in image transport quality can be obtained in a disordered fiber made from a glass matrix with near wavelength-size randomly distributed air-holes with an air-hole fill-fraction of $50\%$. Our results open the way to device-level implementation of the transverse Anderson localization of light with potential applications in biological and medical imaging.