Measuring the spatial extent of individual localized photonic states

M. Spasenovic (1) , D.M. Beggs (1) , Philippe Lalanne (2) , T.F. Krauss (3) , L. Kuipers (1)

1 Center for Nanophotonics
2 lp2n-03,lp2n-13
3 School of Physics and Astronomy [St Andrews]

We measure the spatial extent of individual photonic states that are localized by residual disorder in a slow-light photonic crystal waveguide. The size of the states is measured by locally perturbing them individually through an electromagnetic interaction with a near-field probe. We identify localized states that are not observed in transmission and show that they are shorter than the waveguide length. We also obtain near-field measurements of the participation ratio, from which the size of the states is also derived, in quantitative agreement with the size measured with the perturbation method.

Domains: Optics / Photonic; Optics [physics.optics]

M. Spasenovic, D.M. Beggs, Philippe Lalanne, T.F. Krauss, L. Kuipers. Measuring the spatial extent of individual localized photonic states. Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (1998-2015), 2012, 86 (15), pp.155153. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevB.86.155153⟩. ⟨hal-00811649⟩