Numerical study of the degree of light scattering strength versus fractal dimension in optical fractal disordered media: Applications in strong to weak disordered media

TL;DR

This study investigates how the fractal dimension of optical disordered media influences light scattering strength, revealing a non-monotonous relationship due to competing effects of structural disorder and scattering centers.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical analysis linking fractal dimension to scattering strength using DLA-generated samples and IPR analysis, highlighting complex behavior in disordered media.

Findings

Scattering strength varies non-monotonously with fractal dimension.

Decreasing fractality increases disorder but reduces scattering centers.

Results explain the complex interplay between structure and light scattering.

Abstract

Optical scattering strength of fractal optical disordered media with varying fractal dimension is reported. The diffusion limited aggregation (DLA) technique is used to generate fractal samples in 2D and 3D, and fractal dimensions are calculated using the box-counting method. The degree of structural disorder of these samples are calculated using their light localization strength, using the inverse participation ratio (IPR) analyses of the optical eigenfunctions. Results show non-monotonous behavior of the disorder-induced scattering strength with the fractal dimension, attributed to the competition between increasing structural disorder due to decrease in fractality versus decrease in scattering centers due to decreasing fractality.