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Lévi glass

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La Rivista del Nuovo Cimento Aims and scope

Summary

Lévy glass is a new material which is obtained by assembly of scattering elements. The result is a bulk material which has different degrees of elasticity (from rigid as window glass to flexible as certain plastics) and which can be shaped into any desired form. In particular, Lévy glasses have special optical properties not present in other materials. The name Lévy glass is based on the fact that under certain conditions light waves perform a Lévy walk inside these materials and the resulting optical transport is superdiffusive. From a structural point of view a Lévy glass is a random fractal. We will review the optical and structural properties of Lévy glasses, their design criteria, as well as their experimental realization. Also we will go into various fundamental aspects of Lévy-type light transport, discussing both superdiffusion as well as interference effects like weak and strong localization.

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  1. European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS), University of Florence, INO-CNR Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Florence, Italy

    D. S. Wiersma

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Wiersma, D.S. Lévi glass. Riv. Nuovo Cim. 38, 271–310 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1393/ncr/i2015-10113-1

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