Disorder-induced light trapping enhanced by pulse collisions in one-dimensional nonlinear photonic crystals

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to demonstrate that disorder and pulse interactions in one-dimensional nonlinear photonic crystals significantly enhance light trapping, especially with two pulses, unlike in ordered structures.

Contribution

It introduces a statistical framework explaining disorder-induced trapping and highlights the role of pulse collisions in enhancing light confinement in disordered nonlinear photonic structures.

Findings

Disorder increases the probability of low output energy trapping.

Two interacting pulses significantly enhance trapping compared to single pulses.

Ordered structures do not exhibit the same trapping effect at similar intensities.

Abstract

We use numerical simulations to study interaction of co- and counter-propagating pulses in disordered multilayers with noninstantaneous Kerr nonlinearity. We propose a statistical argument for existence of the disorder-induced trapping which implies the dramatic rise of the probability of realization with low output energy in the structure with a certain level of disorder. This effect is much more pronounced in the case of two interacting pulses than in the single-pulse regime and does not occur in the strictly ordered system at the same intensity of the pulses. Therefore it cannot be explained simply as a result of increase in strength of nonlinear light-matter interaction.