Demixing light paths inside disordered metamaterials.
We experimentally demonstrate the first method to focus light inside disordered photonic metamaterials. In such materials, scattering prevents light from forming a geometric focus. Instead of geometric optics, we used multi-path interference to make the scattering process itself concentrate light on a fluorescent nanoscale probe at the target position. Our method uses the fact that the disorder in a solid material is fixed in time. Therefore, even disordered light scattering is deterministic. Measurements of the probes fluorescence provided the information needed to construct a specific linear combination of hundreds of incident waves, which interfere constructively at the probe.
Vellekoop
I M
IM
Complex Photonic Systems, Faculty of Science and Technology and MESA+ Institute forNanotechnology, University of Twente, P.O.Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. i.m.vellekoop@utwente.nl
van Putten
E G
EG
Lagendijk
A
A
Mosk
A P
AP
D016880:Anisotropy; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008027:Light; D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D017785:Photons; D012031:Refractometry; D012542:Scattering, Radiation