Random Lasers, Complex Systems, and the Nobel Prize in Physics 2021

Anderson Gomes

Random Lasers (RLs) and Random Fiber Lasers (RFLs)have been the subject of intense research since their first experimental demonstration in 1994 and 2007, respectively. These low coherence light sources rely on multiple scattering of light to provide optical feedback in a medium combining a properly excited gain material and a scattering disordered structure. The feedback by scattering makes it an open, complex system, different from a conventional laser. In this talk, I shall introduce the development of RLs and RFLs over the last three decades. Then, in the second part of the talk, I will provide of examples of RLs and RFLs applications in different areas, including plasmonically enhanced RLs and RFLs. Then, I shall highlight results in the last five years exploiting RLs and RFL as platforms for studies of complex systems, including photonics spin glass, turbulence, Lévy-like statistical behavior, among others, and will make the link between some of our work in photonics with the work with led to the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2021 by Giorgio Parisi in magnetism.

Anderson S. L. Gomes is a Professor of Physics at the Physics Department of UFPE, Brazil, performing research in the areas of laser applications in nanophotonics and biophotonics, non-linear optics and non-linear photonic devices. He has co-authored more than 300 scientific publications, H-index Google Scholar: 48; H-index Web of Science: 36. He has supervised 39 master’s dissertations and 20 doctoral theses. He is a Fellow of OPTICA (former OSA), where he was President of the International Council (2011-2012 and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. He was Associate Editor of Advances in Optics and Photonics (OPTICA Publishers) and is currently Associate Editor of Light: Science and Applications, Nature Group.