Transmission, reflection and localization of waves in one-dimensional amplifying media with nonlinear gain

We study theoretically the influence of nonlinear gain effects on the transmission and the Anderson localization of waves in both uniform and random one-dimensional amplifying media by using the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation. In uniform amplifying media with nonlinear gain, we find that the strong oscillatory behavior of the transmittance and the reflectance for odd and even values of the sample length disappears for large nonlinearities. The exponential decay rate of the transmittance in the asymptotic limit is found to be independent of nonlinear gain. In random amplifying media, we find that the maximum values of the disorder-averaged logarithmic transmittance and reflectance depend nonmonotonically on the strength of nonlinear gain. We also find that the localization length is independent of nonlinear gain. In other words, the Anderson localization is neither enhanced nor weakened due to nonlinear gain. In both the uniform and the random cases, the crossover length, which is the critical length for the amplification to be efficient, is strongly reduced by the nonlinear nature of the gain.