Measurement-based tailoring of Anderson localization of partially coherent light

Abstract

We put forward an experimental configuration to observe transverse Anderson localization of partially coherent light beams with a tunable degree of first-order coherence. The scheme makes use of entangled photons propagating in disordered waveguide arrays, and is based on the unique relationship between the degree of entanglement of a pair of photons and the coherence properties of the individual photons constituting the pair. The scheme can be readily implemented with current waveguide-on-a-chip technology, and surprisingly, the tunability of the coherence properties of the individual photons is done at the measurement stage, without resorting changes of the light source itself.