Disorder-Induced Multiple Scattering in Photonic-Crystal Waveguides

In this Letter, we study slow-light transport in photonic-crystal waveguides in the presence of structural imperfections. In contrast with previous theoretical works that rely on perturbation theories, the present formalism takes into account multiple scattering and localization effects. It allows for a quantitative prediction of the main statistical transport coefficients, including averaged values as well as probability distributions. In particular, we evidence that, as the group velocity decreases, the attenuation probability distribution exhibits a rapid broadening that one should consider for designing slow-light devices.