Anderson localization of light: Strong dependence with incident angle - Supplementary Information

Ernesto Jimenez-Villar, M. C. S. Xavier, Valdeci Mestre, Weliton S. Martins, Gabriel F. Basso, Gilberto F. de Sa

Published 2017-05-26Version 1

Anderson localization of light and associated phenomena has greatly attracted the attention of researchers in the past few decades. This paper studies the transport of light for different incidence angles in a strongly disordered optical medium composed by core-shell nanoparticles (TiO2@Silica) suspended in ethanol solution. A decrease of optical conductance and an increase of absorbed energy are reported when the incidence angle is increased. This phenomenon was associated to the large increase of internal reflection with the incidence angle, which is a direct consequence of the enhanced refractive index near the input surface by localization. The specular reflection, measured for the photons that enter the sample, is considerably lower than the effective internal reflection undergone by the coherently backscattered photons in the exactly opposite direction, indicating a non-reciprocal propagation of light (mirror-symmetry breaking). This study represents a novel approach in order to understand the complex physics involved in a disordered optical medium at the critical regime of localization.