Group velocity distribution and short-pulse dispersion in a disordered transverse Anderson localization optical waveguide

Abstract: We investigate the group velocity distribution of waveguide modes in the presence of disorder. The results are based on extensive numerical simulations of disordered optical waveguides using statistical methods. We observe that the narrowest distribution of group velocities is obtained in the presence of a small amount of disorder; therefore, the modal dispersion of an optical pulse is minimized when there is only a slight disorder in the waveguide. The absence of disorder or the presence of a large amount of disorder can result in a large modal dispersion due to the broadening of the distribution of the group velocities. We devise a metric that can be applied to the mode group index probability-density-function and predict the optimal level of disorder that results in the lowest amount of modal dispersion for short pulse propagation. Our results are important for studying the propagation of optical pulses in the linear regime, e.g., for optical communications; and the nonlinear regime for high-power short-pulse propagation.