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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Fabrication And Characterization Of Photonic Crystal Slow Light Waveguides And Cavities
Published on: November 30, 2012
Glassy behavior of light
L Angelani1, C Conti, G Ruocco
1Research Center SMC INFM-CNR, c/o Università di Roma La Sapienza, I-00185, Roma, Italy.
Abstract:
We study the nonlinear dynamics of a multimode random laser using the methods of statistical physics of disordered systems. A replica-symmetry breaking phase transition is predicted as a function of the pump intensity. We thus show that light propagating in a random nonlinear medium displays glassy behavior; i.e., the photon gas has a multitude of metastable states and a nonvanishing complexity, corresponding to mode-locking processes in random lasers. The present work reveals the existence of new physical phenomena, and demonstrates how nonlinear optics and random lasers can be a benchmark for the modern theory of complex systems and glasses.
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