Modal makeup of transmission eigenchannels

Abstract

Transmission eigenchannels and quasi-normal modes are powerful bases for describing wave transport and controlling transmission and energy storage in disordered media. Here we elucidate the connection between these approaches by expressing the transmission matrix (TM) at a particular frequency as a sum of TMs for individual modes drawn from a broad spectral range. The wide range of transmission eigenvalues and correlation frequencies of eigenchannels of transmission is explained by the increasingly off-resonant excitation of modes contributing to eigenchannels with decreasing transmission and by the phasing between these contributions.