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Updated: Aug 10, 2025

Using Microwave and Macroscopic Samples of Dielectric Solids to Study the Photonic Properties of Disordered Photonic Bandgap Materials
Published on: September 26, 2014
Predicting strongly localized resonant modes of light in disordered arrays of dielectric scatterers: a machine
Abstract:
In this work, we predict the most strongly confined resonant mode of light in strongly disordered systems of dielectric scatterers employing the data-driven approach of machine learning. For training, validation, and test purposes of the proposed regression architecture-based deep neural network (DNN), a dataset containing resonant characteristics of light in 8,400 random arrays of dielectric scatterers is generated employing finite difference time domain (FDTD) analysis technique. To enhance the convergence and accuracy of the overall model, an auto-encoder is utilized as the weight initializer of the regression model, which contains three convolutional layers and three fully connected layers. Given the refractive index profile of the disordered system, the trained model can instantaneously predict the Anderson localized resonant wavelength of light with a minimum error of 0.0037%. A correlation coefficient of 0.95 or higher is obtained between the FDTD simulation results and DNN predictions. Such a high level of accuracy is maintained in inhomogeneous disordered media containing Gaussian distribution of diameter of the scattering particles. Moreover, the prediction scheme is found to be robust against any combination of diameters and fill factors of the disordered medium. The proposed model thereby leverages the benefits of machine learning for predicting the complex behavior of light in strongly disordered systems.

