# Advances in Disordered Transverse Anderson Localizing Optical Fibers

## TL;DR

Disordered transverse Anderson localizing optical fibers utilize waveguiding through transverse localization of light, enabling applications like image transport and beam multiplexing, with recent advances focusing on material structure and fabrication.

## Contribution

This review summarizes recent progress in the material structures and fabrication techniques of disordered Anderson localizing optical fibers.

## Key findings

- Modes are highly localized due to transverse Anderson localization.
- Fibers behave like large-core multimode fibers with localized modes.
- Advances improve applications in image transport and spatial multiplexing.

## Abstract

Disordered transverse Anderson localizing optical fibers have shown great promise in various applications from image transport to random lasing. Their success is due to their novel waveguiding behavior, which is enabled by the transverse Anderson localization of light. The strong transverse scattering from the transversely disordered refractive index structure results in transversely confined modes that can freely propagate in the longitudinal direction. Therefore, these fibers behave like large-core highly multimode optical fibers, with the peculiar property that most modes are highly localized. This property makes them ideal for such applications as image transport and spatial beam multiplexing. In this review paper, we will explore some of the recent advances in these fibers, especially those related to the material structure and fabrication methods.