Optical surface modes in the presence of nonlinearity and disorder

Abstract: We investigate numerically the effect of the competition of disorder, nonlinearity, and boundaries on the Anderson localization of light waves in finite-size, one-dimensional waveguide arrays. Using the discrete Anderson - nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, the propagation of the mode amplitudes up to some finite distance is monitored. The analysis is based on the calculated localization length and the participation number, two standard measures for the statistical description of Anderson localization. For relatively weak disorder and nonlinearity, a higher disorder strength is required to achieve the same degree of localization at the edge than in the interior of the array, in agreement with recent experimental observations in the linear regime. However, for relatively strong disorder and/or nonlinearity, this behavior is reversed and it is now easier to localize an excitation at the edge than in the interior.