Transverse Anderson localization in a disordered glass optical fiber

We report the first observation of transverse Anderson localization in a glass optical fiber. The strong localization happens near the outer boundary of the fiber and no trace of localization is observed in the central regions. However, these observations complement previous reports that the boundary of a disordered medium has a de-localizing effect. Our observations can be explained by considering the non-uniform distribution of disorder in the fiber, where the substantially larger disorder near the outer boundary of the fiber offsets the de-localizing effect of the boundary. (c) 2012 Optical Society of America