Reflection and transmission of waves in surface-disordered waveguides

An analytical and numerical study is presented of transmission of radiation through a multi-mode waveguide containing a random medium with a complex dielectric constant $\epsilon= \epsilon'+i\epsilon''$. Depending on the sign of $\epsilon''$, the medium is absorbing or amplifying. The transmitted intensity decays exponentially $\propto\exp(-L/\xi)$ as the waveguide length $L\to\infty$, regardless of the sign of $\epsilon''$. The localization length $\xi$ is computed as a func...

Disorder is more the rule than the exception in natural and synthetic materials. Nonetheless, wave propagation within inhomogeneously disordered materials has received scant attention. We combine microwave experiments and theory to find the spatial variation of generic wave propagation quantities in inhomogeneously disordered materials. We demonstrate that wave statistics within samples of any dimension are independent of the detailed structure of a material and depend only o...

We present analytical results on transport properties of many-mode waveguides with randomly stratified disorder having long-range correlations. To describe such systems, the theory of 1D transport recently developed for a correlated disorder is generalized. The propagation of waves through such waveguides may reveal a quite unexpected phenomena of a complete transparency for a subset of propagating modes. We found that with a proper choice of long-range correlations one can a...

One way to reduce the lattice thermal conductivity of solids is to induce additional phonon surface scattering through nanostructures. However, how phonons interact with boundaries, especially at the atomic level, is not well understood. In this work, we performed two-dimensional atomistic wave packet simulations to investigate the phonon surface interaction. Emphasis has been given to the angular-resolved phonon reflection at smooth, periodically rough, and amorphous surface...

The spatial structure of the inhomogeneity in a disordered medium determines how waves scatter and propagate in it. We present a theoretical model of how the Fourier components of the disorder control wave scattering in a two-dimensional disordered medium, by analyzing the disordered Green's function for scalar waves. By selecting a set of Fourier components with the appropriate wave vectors, we can enhance or suppress wave scattering to filter out unwanted waves and allow th...

We study the relation between quasi-normal modes (QNMs) and transmission resonances (TRs) in one-dimensional (1D) disordered systems. We show for the first time that while each maximum in the transmission coefficient is always related to a QNM, the reverse statement is not necessarily correct. There exists an intermediate state, at which only a part of the QNMs are localized and these QNMs provide a resonant transmission. The rest of the solutions of the eigenvalue problem (d...

We present a numerical study on the minimum reflection channel in a disordered waveguide and its modification by coherent amplification of light. The minimum reflection channel is formed by destructive interference of quasi-normal modes at the front surface of the random medium. While the lowest reflection eigenvalue increases with gain in most random realizations, the minimum reflection channel can adjust its modal composition to enhance the destructive interference and slow...

We explore numerically, analytically, and experimentally the relationship between quasi-normal modes (QNMs) and transmission resonance (TR) peaks in the transmission spectrum of one-dimensional (1D) and quasi-1D open disordered systems. It is shown that for weak disorder there exist two types of the eigenstates: ordinary QNMs which are associated with a TR, and hidden QNMs which do not exhibit peaks in transmission or within the sample. The distinctive feature of the hidden m...

We study the fluctuations of the total topological charge of a scalar wave propagating in a hollow conducting wave guide filled with scatterers inside. We investigate the dependence of the screening on the scattering mean free path and on the presence of boundaries. Near the cut-off frequencies of the wave guide, screening is strongly suppressed near the boundaries. The resulting huge fluctuations of the total topological charge are very sensitive to the disorder.

We study chaotic properties of eigenstates for periodic quasi-1D waveguides with "regular" and "random" surfaces. Main attention is paid to the role of the so-called "gradient scattering" which is due to large gradients in the scattering walls. We demonstrate numerically and explain theoretically that the gradient scattering can be quite strong even if the amplitude of scattering profiles is very small in comparison with the width of waveguides.