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Mesoscopic light transport in nonlinear disordered media

Alfonso Nardi1, Andrea Morandi1, Romain Pierrat2, Arthur Goetschy2, Xuanchen Li1, Frank Scheffold3, and Rachel Grange1

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 023323 – Published 30 June, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ztyj-rc63

Abstract

Nonlinear disordered media uniquely combine multiple scattering and second-harmonic generation. Here, we investigate the statistical properties of the nonlinear light generated within such media. We report super-Rayleigh statistics of the second-harmonic speckle intensity, and demonstrate that it is caused by the mesoscopic correlations arising in extreme scattering conditions. The conductance measured is exceptionally low for an isotropically scattering three-dimensional medium, enabling applications in broadband second-harmonic generation, wavefront shaping in nonlinear disordered media, and photonic computing.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 023323– Published 30 June, 2025
  • Received 25 September 2024
  • Revised 6 March 2025
  • Accepted 16 May 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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