Resonant-light diffusion in a disordered atomic layer
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Authors
Saint-Jalm, R
Aidelsburger, M
Ville, JL
Corman, L
Hadzibabic, Z
Delande, D
Nascimbene, S
Cherroret, N
Dalibard, J
Beugnon, J
Publication Date
2018Journal Title
Physical Review A
ISSN
2469-9926
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Volume
97
Issue
6
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Saint-Jalm, R., Aidelsburger, M., Ville, J., Corman, L., Hadzibabic, Z., Delande, D., Nascimbene, S., et al. (2018). Resonant-light diffusion in a disordered atomic layer. Physical Review A, 97 (6) https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.97.061801
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 sub-wavelength
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.
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/N011759/1)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.97.061801
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/282776
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