Scale-free optical propagation in out-of-equilibrium ferroelectric crystals

In this paper we describe recent progress in the study of scale-free optical propagation in super-cooled non-ergodic ferroelectrics. Our experimental and theoretical findings indicate that a regime can be found in which diffusion-driven photorefractive effects can fully annul the diffraction of focused laser beams. This demonstrates that diffraction can be systematically eliminated from an optical system and not simply compensated, with fundamental implications for optical imaging and microscopy. The effect transfers directly from the paraxial regime into the non-paraxial regime described by the Helmholtz Equation, and suggests a means to achieve the propagation of super-resolved optical images. The result is a nonlinear-based metamaterial, even though the underlying nano-structuring of the ferroelectric is random and the effect is both non-absorptive and wavelength-independent for a wide spectrum.