Nonergodic extended phase for waves in three dimensions

Abstract: Wave transport in complex media is determined by the nature of quasimodes at the microscopic level. In three dimensional disordered media, waves generally undergo a phase transition from diffusion to Anderson localization, characterized by exponentially localized modes. A remarkable exception are electromagnetic waves, whose vector-like nature prevents Anderson localization to occur. Here we demonstrate that both scalar and vector (electromagnetic) waves exhibit a non-ergodic extended phase characterized by fractal quasimodes, for a broad range of disorder strengths. While electromagnetic waves remain in the non-ergodic extended phase at high disorder strength, scalar waves eventually enter a localized regime. These results pave the way for the engineering of anomalous wave transport phenomena in disordered media without spatial correlations.