Phys.org September 6, 2024 Breaking the reciprocity of wave propagation is a problem of fundamental interest, and a much-sought functionality in practical applications, both in photonics and phononics. Although it has been achieved using resonant linear scattering from cavities with broken time-reversal symmetry, such realizations have remained inescapably plagued by inherent passivity constraints, which make absorption losses unavoidable, leading to stringent limitations in transmitted power. Researchers in Switzerland solved this problem by converting the cavity resonance into a limit cycle, exploiting the uncharted interplay between non-linearity, gain, and non-reciprocity. Strong enough incident waves could synchronize with these self-sustained oscillations and […]
Tag Archives: Electromagnetic waves
With trapped waves, researchers resolve a longstanding debate
Nanowerk June 17, 2023 Anderson localization is the absence of diffusion of waves in disordered systems. Despite extensive studies over the past 40 years, Anderson localization of light in three dimensions has remained elusive, leading to the question of its very existence. An international team of researchers (USA – Missouri University, industry, University of Wisconsin, France) used brute-force numerical simulations of light transport in fully disordered three-dimensional systems with unprecedented dimension and refractive index difference. They showed numerically three-dimensional localization of vector electromagnetic waves in random aggregates of overlapping metallic spheres, in sharp contrast to the absence of localization for dielectric […]