Abstract

Electromagnetic waves propagating in disordered dielectric structures mimic, to reasonable extend, the behavior of electrons in disordered semiconductors. Especially interesting is the electromagnetic analogy of the concept of electron localization in non-crystalline systems such as amorphous semiconductors. Localized electronic states are basically bound to stay in a finite region of space for all times, whereas extended ones are free to flow out of any finite region. Therefore the material in which an entire band of electronic states is localized will be an insulator, whereas the possibility of extended states will correspond to a conductor. The phenomenon of Anderson localization is related to a dramatic inhibition of the propagation of an electron when it is subject to a spatially random potential.

© 1998 IEEE