Control of passive and active open random media: Theoretical and Experimental investigations

Abstract

Light propagation in matter is described by vibration eigenstates, called modes, which characterize the light-matter interaction. In the specific case of random media, according to the strength of the disorder, the modes can be either extended over the whole system or spatially localized. This disorder-based confinement is called Anderson’s localization.In the first part, we introduce basic notions used along this manuscript. In particular the light-matter interaction requires a semiclassical approach: The electromagnetic field is described by Maxwell’s equations while the quantum nature of matter must be considered. In this thesis open media are studied. In such systems the modal description requires a specific analytic treatment different from closed problems. In the second part, we focus on Anderson-localized modes in open passive random media. Any change of the disorder induces modifications of modes. Therefore, it enables the control over the light properties. Moreover, when inserting an emitter inside an Anderson-localized mode, strong light-matter interaction regimes can be reached. In the third part, active random media, commonly called random lasers, are introduced. Using our experimental achievements, characteristics of random lasers are presented. The notion of mode enables us to describe complex mechanisms involved in the lasing emission. Last, we demonstrate both experimentally and numerically that a non-uniform excitation of random lasers can lead to a control of the properties of the emission. In particular a multimode spectrum for a uniform pumping can be turned into single-mode using an adapted pumping.