Proposal for Anderson localization in transverse spatial degrees of freedom of photons

Abstract

We propose an experimental setup for studying the Anderson localization of light in the continuous transverse spatial degrees of freedom of the photons. This physical phenomenon can be observed in the transverse profile of a paraxial and quasi-monochromatic beam of light using a spatial light modulator. The light modulator acts in the laser beam as a weak random potential. Here, differently from the standard models studied in the literature, our setup splits the dispersion and potential terms along the beam evolution. By numerical simulations we confirm the feasibility of our experimental proposal.