Spatio-temporal visualization of light transport in complex photonic structures

Abstract

Spatio-temporal imaging of light propagation is very important in photonics because it provides the most direct tool available to study the interaction between light and its host environment. Sub-ps time resolution is needed to investigate the fine and complex structural features that characterize disordered and heterogeneous structures, which are responsible for a rich array of transport physics that have not yet been fully explored. A newly developed wide-field imaging system enables us to present a spatio-temporal study on light transport in various disordered media, revealing properties that could not be properly assessed using standard techniques. By extending our investigation to an almost transparent membrane, a configuration that has been difficult to characterize until now, we unveil the peculiar physics exhibited by such thin scattering systems with transport features that go beyond mainstream diffusion modeling, despite the occurrence of multiple scattering.