Mesoscopic transport and control of light through disordered nanowire mats
Mesoscopic transport and control of light through disordered nanowire mats
In this thesis the transport of light through disordered, densely packed semiconductor nanowire mats is studied. It is found that the extremely high photonic strength of these samples leads to corrections to the traditional diffusion picture of light transport due to mesoscopic interference. Such effects are characterized by large intensity fluctuations and correlations, and it is found the transport is dominated by only a few independent transmission channels, close to the Anderson localisation regime. In addition to the strongly scattering nanowire samples, comparatively weakly scattering samples of ZnO are investigated, demonstrating mesoscopic effects in a less exotic, isotropic multiple scattering material. Control is obtained over the transmission by a combination of shaping the incident wavefront and harnessing the intrinsic nonlinearity of the semiconductor with ultrafast optical excitation. Through these techniques, a bright focus at an arbitrary point through the nanowires is created which can be modulated by up to 60% in a demonstration of a reconfigurable photonic switch.
Strudley, Tom
ad577d6a-d153-4b02-a7b2-2e4a37f05229
August 2014
Strudley, Tom
ad577d6a-d153-4b02-a7b2-2e4a37f05229
Muskens, Otto L.
2284101a-f9ef-4d79-8951-a6cda5bfc7f9
Strudley, Tom
(2014)
Mesoscopic transport and control of light through disordered nanowire mats.
University of Southampton, Physical Sciences and Engineering, Doctoral Thesis, 115pp.
Record type:
Thesis
(Doctoral)
Abstract
In this thesis the transport of light through disordered, densely packed semiconductor nanowire mats is studied. It is found that the extremely high photonic strength of these samples leads to corrections to the traditional diffusion picture of light transport due to mesoscopic interference. Such effects are characterized by large intensity fluctuations and correlations, and it is found the transport is dominated by only a few independent transmission channels, close to the Anderson localisation regime. In addition to the strongly scattering nanowire samples, comparatively weakly scattering samples of ZnO are investigated, demonstrating mesoscopic effects in a less exotic, isotropic multiple scattering material. Control is obtained over the transmission by a combination of shaping the incident wavefront and harnessing the intrinsic nonlinearity of the semiconductor with ultrafast optical excitation. Through these techniques, a bright focus at an arbitrary point through the nanowires is created which can be modulated by up to 60% in a demonstration of a reconfigurable photonic switch.
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Published date: August 2014
Organisations:
University of Southampton, Quantum, Light & Matter Group
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Local EPrints ID: 374303
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/374303
PURE UUID: 9f0512ff-3dff-43bb-827b-640e6bf02300
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Date deposited: 16 Feb 2015 14:34
Last modified: 12 Dec 2021 03:44
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Author:
Tom Strudley
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