Unusual Brownian motion of photons in open absorbing media

Very recent experiments have discovered that localized light in strongly absorbing media displays intriguing diffusive phenomena. Here we develop a first-principles theory of light propagation in open media with arbitrary absorption strength and sample length. We show analytically that photons in localized open absorbing media exhibit unusual Brownian motion. Specifically, wave transport follows the diffusion equation with the diffusion coefficient exhibiting spatial resolution. Most strikingly, despite that the system is controlled by two parameters -- the ratio of the localization (absorption) length to the sample length -- the spatially resolved diffusion coefficient displays novel single parameter scaling: it depends on the space via the returning probability. Our analytic predictions for this diffusion coefficient are confirmed by numerical simulations. In the strong absorption limit they agree well with the experimental results.

A complementary media invisibility cloak that can cloak objects at a distance outside the cloaking shell

Based on the concept of complementary media, we propose an invisibility cloak operating at a finite frequency that can cloak an object with a pre-specified shape and size within a certain distance outside the shell. The cloak comprises of a dielectric core, and an anti-object embedded inside a negative index shell. The cloaked object is not blinded by the cloaking shell since it lies outside the cloak. Full-wave simulations in two dimensions have been performed to verify the cloaking effect.