Interplay between boundaries and disorder in coupled optical waveguides

Abstract: We investigate the effects of weak disorder on the time evolution of a wave packet in an array of optical waveguides with parity-symmetric evanescent coupling and, open or periodic boundary conditions. For an open array, when the disorder is unable to suppress the ballistic expansion, we find that the light partially localizes to its initial waveguide and the parity-symmetric waveguide when a single waveguide is excited. For an array with periodic boundary condition, the light localizes in the initial waveguide and its antipodal waveguide. Through a model where the boundaries of the array are only partially reflective, we quantify and investigate the continuous crossover between these two regimes. Our results show that disorder-induced localization in finite arrays with very weak disorder is strongly affected by the boundary effects that have been hitherto ignored.