Random lasing from Anderson attractors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a two-dimensional nonlinear Anderson model that exhibits lasing behavior with localized and delocalized modes, revealing how pumping influences spectral properties and mimics features of random lasers.

Contribution

It presents a novel nonlinear Anderson model demonstrating lasing phenomena and spectral evolution, bridging the understanding of random laser behavior with Anderson localization effects.

Findings

Lasing occurs above a certain pumping threshold with narrow spectral lines.

Spectral broadening increases with pumping, especially in the localized phase.

Narrow peaks are suppressed in the metallic phase.

Abstract

We introduce and study a two-dimensional dissipative nonlinear Anderson pumping model which is characterized by localized or delocalized eigenmodes in a linear regime and in addition includes nonlinearity, dissipation and pumping. We find that above a certain pumping threshold the model has narrow spectral lasing lines generated by isolated clusters of Anderson attractors. With the increase of the pumping, the lasing spectrum is broaden even if narrow lasing peaks are still well present in the localized phase of linear modes. In the metallic phase, the presence of narrow spectral peaks is significantly suppressed. We argue that the model captures main features observed for random lasers.