Disorder-induced modal alignment in transmission eigenchannels enables control of wave transport

[2601.07971] Disorder-induced modal alignment in transmission eigenchannels enables control of wave transport Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Physics > Optics arXiv:2601.07971 (physics) [Submitted on 12 Jan 2026 ( v1 ), last revised 20 Oct 2026 (this version, v4)] Title: Disorder-induced modal alignment in transmission eigenchannels enables control of wave transport Authors: Israel Kurtz , Yiming Huang , Zhou Shi , Azriel Z Genack View PDF Abstract: The transmission eigenchannels of a disordered medium range from unity transmission and high internal energy density to vanishing transmission and low internal energy density. Although the transmission matrix underlies central ideas in mesoscopic electronic transport, it cannot be measured directly in electronic systems. For classical waves, however, the measurable matrix gives access to eigenchannels that control transmission and energy density within the medium. Coherence underlies transmission-eigenvalue scaling, the bimodal distribution in diffusive samples, and Anderson localization. What has remained unresolved is how interference among modal contributions is organized within individual eigenchannels throughout the sample. Here, microwave transmission-matrix measurements resolve the complex contribution of each incident mode to every transmitted mode of each eigenchannel. In simulations, we construct a flux matrix that generalizes the transmission matrix to every depth and further separate each internal modal contribution into forward- and backward-propagating components. For each eigenchannel, the directional flux in every mode throughout the sample factorizes into the squared modal amplitudes of the incident eigenchannel, coupling between waveguide modes, and modal alignment. In high-transmission eigenchannels, the contributions align increasingly constructively with depth, approaching nearly perfect alignment in the highest channel near the localization crossover. In low-transmission eigenchannels, contributions interfere destructively, producing vanishing transmission at a transmission zero. Because the contributions remain appreciable as their coherent sum approaches zero, transmission far below the noise floor of conventional transmission measurements can be determined. Comments: Main text: 32 pages, 7 figures; supplemental information: 13 pages, 5 figures Subjects: Optics (physics.optics) ; Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) Cite as: arXiv:2601.07971 [physics.optics] (or arXiv:2601.07971v4 [physics.optics] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.07971 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Israel Kurtz [ view email ] [v1] Mon, 12 Jan 2026 20:05:45 UTC (1,895 KB) [v2] Fri, 15 May 2026 23:13:46 UTC (1,654 KB) [v3] Mon, 24 Aug 2026 18:01:30 UTC (1,621 KB) [v4] Tue, 20 Oct 2026 23:25:32 UTC (1,639 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF view license Current browse context: physics.optics < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-01 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.other physics References & Citations SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. 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