Influence of a medium's nonlinearity on Anderson localization of light in optically induced photonic lattices

We studied numerically the Anderson localization of light in the two-dimensional square photonic lattice, optically induced in both linear and nonlinear dielectric media. We investigated the combined influence of nonlinearity and disorder on Anderson localization in bulk media, as well as when there is interface between the linear and nonlinear medium. In bulk, there exist strongly nonlinear regimes in which localization is less pronounced than in the linear regime. We found that in the defocusing nonlinear regime, the localization is always less pronounced than in the linear regime. We also studied surface-localized modes near the interface between linear and nonlinear dielectric media with an optically induced photonic lattice, and observed the threshold for their existence. We demonstrate suppression of the localization at the interface for lower disorder levels, compared with both pure linear and pure nonlinear media. 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

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