Observation of a localization transition in quasiperiodic photonic lattices

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Jul 3;103(1):013901. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.013901. Epub 2009 Jun 30.

Abstract

We report the observation of the signature of a localization phase transition for light in one-dimensional quasiperiodic photonic lattices, by directly measuring wave transport inside the lattice. Below the predicted transition point an initially narrow wave packet expands as it propagates, while above the transition expansion is fully suppressed. In addition, we measure the effect of focusing nonlinear interaction on the propagation and find it increases the width of the localized wave packets.