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Disordered optics

Resonant dust

The optics of disordered materials is rich and full of surprises. Researchers have now found a new form of stochastic resonance in which an image beam is resonantly amplified by noise.

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Figure 1: Intensity distribution of light randomly scattered many times inside a disordered structure, called speckle.
Figure 2: Multiple scattering in a disordered material is fully elastic, meaning that the image information is not lost when light passes through the structure; that is, the multiple scattering process is completely reversible.

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Wiersma, D. Resonant dust. Nature Photon 4, 274–275 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2010.97

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