Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
2 p.m., Thursday, April 27, 2006
Room 1201, Physics Building
Photon localization and mesoscopic
correlation in the time domain
Azriel Genack
(Queen’s College)
Abstract: Perhaps because the enhancement of fluctuations far from
the localization threshold is large, in contrast to the small suppression of
transport by weak localization, mesoscopic fluctuations and localization are
often seen as distinct phenomena. Isolating these effects and finding the
relationship between them is challenging because, on the one hand, steady state
electronic conductance and optical transmission involve the superposition of
partial waves with all possible pathlengths, while on the other, these effects
depend differently upon the length of wave trajectories. Finding the connection
between mesoscopic fluctuations and photon localization is further complicated
by absorption which leads to an exponential suppression of transport and thereby
mimics the behavior of localization. In this talk, we will show that an
examination of transport in random media in the time domain allows all these
effects to be studied separately. At the same time, we find that fluctuations
and localization can each be seen to emerge from the other. We observe the
increasing impact of weak localization and the growth of mesoscopic fluctuations
and intensity correlation with delay time from an exciting pulse and find the
link between the suppression of transport in time and spectral fluctuations of
total transmission.
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Host: Anlage
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