Violation of light beam reversibility principle in optical media with a random quasi-zero refractive index

Abstract

We report on experimental and theoretical evidence of the violation of one of the fundamental principles in the Fresnel optics, namely, light beam reversibility, in new nanostructured composite metamaterials with silver nanoparticle in a polymer matrix. It is shown that optical transmittance of (PMMA + Ag)/glass samples in counter directions is not the same. We propose a theoretical explanation of this phenomenon based on the effect of photon localization on the surface of the composite layer with a random quasizero refractive index.