Anderson localization of light in dimension $d-1$

Abstract

Localization of electromagnetic waves in disordered potentials is prevented by polarization terms, so only light scattering systems of dimensions $d=1$ and $2$ with scalar properties exhibit light localization. We here show that this result breaks down due to the existence of surface modes, which possess lower-dimensional scattering properties. In particular, vectorial waves in $3D$ ($2D$) presents surface localized modes with scaling consistent with localization $2D$ ($1D$)