Light in correlated disordered media

TL;DR

This paper reviews how structural correlations in disordered media influence light scattering, transport, and localization, highlighting recent advances, experimental techniques, and potential applications in nanophotonics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical and experimental progress in understanding correlated disordered media and their impact on light behavior.

Findings

Correlated disorder can control light scattering and transport.

Experimental techniques have advanced to study mesoscopic phenomena.

Disorder engineering enables novel photonic applications.

Abstract

The optics of correlated disordered media is a fascinating research topic emerging at the interface between the physics of waves in complex media and nanophotonics. Inspired by photonic structures in nature and enabled by advances in nanofabrication processes, recent investigations have unveiled how the design of structural correlations down to the subwavelength scale could be exploited to control the scattering, transport and localization of light in matter. From optical transparency to superdiffusive light transport to photonic gaps, the optics of correlated disordered media challenges our physical intuition and offers new perspectives for applications. This article reviews the theoretical foundations, state-of-the-art experimental techniques and major achievements in the study of light interaction with correlated disorder, covering a wide range of systems -- from short-range correlated photonic liquids, to L\'evy glasses containing fractal heterogeneities, to hyperuniform disordered photonic materials. The mechanisms underlying light scattering and transport phenomena are elucidated on the basis of rigorous theoretical arguments. We overview the exciting ongoing research on mesoscopic phenomena, such as transport phase transitions and speckle statistics, and the current development of disorder engineering for applications such as light-energy management and visual appearance design. Special efforts are finally made to identify the main theoretical and experimental challenges to address in the near future.