Resonant-light diffusion in a disordered atomic layer

Saint-Jalm, R.; Aidelsburger, M.; Ville, J. L.; Corman, L.; Hadzibabic, Z.; Delande, D.; Nascimbene, S.; Cherroret, N.; Dalibard, J. und Beugnon, J. (2018): Resonant-light diffusion in a disordered atomic layer. In: Physical Review A, Bd. 97, Nr. 6, 61801

Abstract

Light scattering in dense media is a fundamental problem of many-body physics, which is also relevant for the development of optical devices. In this work we investigate experimentally light propagation in a dense sample of randomly positioned resonant scatterers confined in a layer of subwavelength thickness. We locally illuminate the atomic cloud and monitor spatially resolved fluorescence away from the excitation region. We show that light spreading is well described by a diffusion process, involving many scattering events in the dense regime. For light detuned from resonance we find evidence that the atomic layer behaves as a graded-index planar waveguide. These features are reproduced by a simple geometrical model and numerical simulations of coupled dipoles.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Physik
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 530 Physik
• ISSN: 2469-9926
• Sprache: Englisch