Experimental Evidence for Recurrent Multiple Scattering Events of Light in Disordered Media

Diederik S. Wiersma; Meint P. van Albada; Bart A. van Tiggelen; Ad Lagendijk

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.74.4193

Experimental Evidence for Recurrent Multiple Scattering Events of Light in Disordered Media

Diederik S. Wiersma, Meint P. van Albada, Bart A. van Tiggelen, and Ad Lagendijk

Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4193 – Published 22 May 1995

Abstract

The coherent backscattering of light from disordered samples was studied with a new technique, which allowed for a very accurate determination of the enhancement factor in exact backscattering. Using circularly polarized light, the enhancement factor in the polarization conserving channel was found to be $2.00 \pm 0.01$ in the weak scattering regime and was found to drop gradually below this value for stronger scattering. We argue that this behavior of the enhancement factor is the first direct experimental manifestation of recurrent multiple scattering events.

Received 22 October 1993

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.74.4193

Authors & Affiliations

Diederik S. Wiersma¹, Meint P. van Albada¹, Bart A. van Tiggelen³, and Ad Lagendijk^1,2

¹Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter–Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics, Kruislaan 407, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
²van der Waals–Zeeman Laboratorium, Valckenierstraat 65-67, 1018 XE Amsterdam, The Netherlands
³Expérimentation Numérique, Maison de Magistères/CNRS, B.P. 166, 38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France