Red light for Anderson localization

TL;DR

This paper reviews the challenges and controversies in observing Anderson localization of light in three-dimensional disordered media, highlighting experimental difficulties and proposing alternative approaches to achieve localization.

Contribution

It critically examines past experimental claims, discusses reasons for difficulties, and suggests new strategies involving structured scatterers and cold atoms to observe Anderson localization.

Findings

Previous experiments often misinterpreted fluorescence as localization.

Experimental observation of 3D Anderson localization remains elusive due to material and near-field effects.

Proposed methods include using partially ordered materials and cold atom clouds.

Abstract

During the last 30 years, the search for Anderson localization of light in three-dimensional (3D) disordered samples yielded a number of experimental observations that were first considered successful, then disputed by opponents, and later refuted by their authors. This includes recent results for light in TiO_2 powders that T. Sperling et al. now show to be due to fluorescence and not to Anderson localization (New J. Phys. 18 (2016) 013039). The difficulty of observing Anderson localization of light in 3D may be due to a number of factors: insufficient optical contrast between the components of the disordered material, near-field effects, etc. The way to overcome these difficulties may consist in using partially ordered materials, complex structured scatterers, or clouds of cold atoms in magnetic fields.