Topological Anderson Random Laser
Abstract
Topological lasers and random lasers embody two contrasting strategies for disorder management in photonics: the former suppresses disorder via protected edge transport, while the latter exploits multiple scattering for feedback. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that these seemingly incompatible paradigms can be unified through a topological Anderson random laser (TARL), where disorder itself induces a topological phase that enables robust lasing. Starting from a trivial photonic lattice, we show that engineered disorder drives the system into a topological Anderson insulator regime, generating emergent chiral edge states that serve as boundary-selective lasing channels. Remarkably, the TARL exhibits rapid mode selection toward a single edge state, producing an ultranarrow emission spectrum and enhanced slope efficiency optimized near disorder strength with maximal topological mobility gap. Furthermore, they exhibit single-mode-like coherence properties, deviating from Kardar-Parisi-Zhang behavior in conventional chiral topological lasers, while remaining significantly more robust against local perturbations than conventional random lasers. Our findings establish a disorder-enabled flexible route to topologically protected single-mode lasing and introduce a fundamentally new design principle for robust, high-coherence photonic light sources.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.02364,
title = {Topological Anderson Random Laser},
author = {Hang-Zheng Shen and Xian-Hao Wei and Xi-Wang Luo and Zheng-Wei Zhou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.02364},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
7 pages, 6 figures, with 5 page supplementary information