^{Anderson localization has been a subject of fascination and intense research for more than fifty years. It is highly desirable to harness its curious and interesting properties in practical applications. We have taken a step in this direction by using this phenomenon as the wave guiding mechanism in optical fibers. We have shown, both experimentally and numerically, that for a moderate amount of disorder in optical fibers, transverse localization results in an effective propagating beam diameter that is comparable to that of a typical index-guiding optical fiber.1, 2 In this work, we investigate the effect of macro-bending on the localization properties in a disordered polymer optical fiber both experimentally and numerically. We show that macro-bending in ranges of practical interest does not significantly affect the beam propagation in Anderson localized fibers as long as the strong localization dominates the effect of bending.}

Date Published: 21 February 2013
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8632, Photonic and Phononic Properties of Engineered Nanostructures III, 863227 (21 February 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2004914

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8632:
Photonic and Phononic Properties of Engineered Nanostructures III
Ali Adibi; Shawn-Yu Lin; Axel Scherer, Editor(s)