Mesoscopic light transport in nonlinear disordered media

TL;DR

This paper studies the statistical behavior of second-harmonic light in nonlinear disordered media, revealing super-Rayleigh speckle statistics caused by mesoscopic correlations, with implications for advanced photonic applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates the first observation of super-Rayleigh statistics in nonlinear disordered media and links it to mesoscopic correlations under extreme scattering conditions.

Findings

Super-Rayleigh speckle intensity statistics observed.

Lowest conductance measured in 3D isotropic scattering media.

Potential applications in nonlinear optics and photonic computing.

Abstract

Nonlinear disordered media uniquely combine multiple scattering and second-harmonic generation. Here, we investigate the statistical properties of the nonlinear light generated within such media. We report super-Rayleigh statistics of the second-harmonic speckle intensity, and demonstrate that it is caused by the mesoscopic correlations arising in extreme scattering conditions. The measured conductance is the lowest ever observed in an isotropically scattering 3D medium, with applications in broadband second-harmonic generation, wavefront shaping in nonlinear disordered media, and photonic computing.