In 1958, Phil Anderson surprised the international scientific community by predicting that an electrical conductor (such as copper) can abruptly turn into an insulator (such as glass), when the atomic crystal order is sufficiently shaken up. In the jargon of physicists, such “disorder” can pin the otherwise freely moving electrons down, and thus, prevent any substantial electrical currents through the material. This physical phenomenon, known as “Anderson localization”, can only be explained by modern quantum mechanics, where electrons are treated not only as particles, but also as waves. As it turns out, this effect, for which Phil Anderson was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics 1977, applies also to classical settings: Disorder can likewise suppress the propagation of sound waves or even light beams.
The research of the physics professors Alexander Szameit and Mordechai Segev deals with the properties of light and its interaction with matter. Recently, the team of Professor Segev made an astonishing discovery: Light waves may even show Anderson localization induced if the disorder is practically to them. Going far beyond Phil Anderson’s original considerations, this new type of disorder exclusively contains spatially periodic distributions with certain wavelengths.
“Naively, one would expect that only those waves, whose spatial distributions somehow matches the length scales of the disorder can be affected by it and potentially experience Anderson localization.” Sebastian Weidemann, who is a PhD student at the Institute for Physics in the group of Professor Szameit, explains. “Other waves should essentially propagate as if there were no disorder at all.” Dr. Mark Kremer, who is also from the group of Professor Szameit, continues.
In contrast, the recent theoretical work from the Technion team suggested that the propagation of waves could be dramatically affected even by such “invisible disorder”. “When light waves can interact multiple times with the invisible disorder, a surprisingly strong effect can build up and arrest all light propagation.” PhD student Alex Dikopoltsev from the group of Professor Segev describes the effect.
In close collaboration, the physicists from Rostock and Israel demonstrate the new localization mechanism for the first time. “To this end, we constructed artificial disordered materials from kilometres of optical fibre. Arranged in an intricate fashion, our optical networks emulate the spatial spreading of electrons in disordered materials. This allowed us to directly observe how practically invisible structures can successfully ensnare light waves”, Sebastian Weidemann explains, who conducted the experiments together with Dr. Mark Kremer.
The discoveries constitute a significant advance in fundamental research on the propagation of waves in disordered media, and potentially pave the way towards a new generation of synthetic materials that harness disorder to selectively suppress currents; whether light, sound or even electrons.
The findings were recently published in the renowned journal Science Advances. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the European Research Council (ERC) and the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach-foundation.
Original publication:
A. Dikopoltsev, S. Weidemann, M. Kremer et al., Sci. Adv. 8, eabn7769 (2022).
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abn7769
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn7769
Contact details:
Prof. Alexander Szameit
Experimental Solid-State Optics Group
Institute for Physics
University of Rostock
Tel.: +49 381 498-6790
E-Mail: alexander.szameit@uni-rostock.de