Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 10, 2026

Fabrication and Characterization of Disordered Polymer Optical Fibers for Transverse Anderson Localization of Light
Published on: July 29, 2013
Disorder-mediated enhancement of fiber numerical aperture
Youngwoon Choi1, Changhyeong Yoon, Moonseok Kim
1Department of Physics, Korea University, Seoul 136-701, South Korea.
Abstract:
The numerical aperture (NA) of a multimode optical fiber sets the limit of the information transport capacity along the spatial degree of freedom. In this Letter, we report that the application of a highly disordered medium can overcome the capacity limit set by the fiber NA. Specifically, we coated the input surface of a multimode fiber with a disordered medium made of ZnO nanoparticles and transported a wide-field image through the fiber with a spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit given by the fiber NA. This was made possible because multiple scatterings induced by the disordered medium physically increased the NA of the entire system. Our study will lead to enhancing the spatial resolution of fiber-based endoscopic imaging and also improving the information transport capacity in optical communications.
Related Concept Videos
Imaging Biological Samples with Optical Microscopy
In optical microscopy, the specimen to be viewed is placed on a glass slide and clipped on the stage...
Focusing of Light in the Eye
Photoreceptors and Visual Pathways
Super-resolution Fluorescence Microscopy
Nuclear Overhauser Enhancement (NOE)

