Single-Frequency Symmetry-Empowered Through-Barrier Sensing in Reconfigurable Complex Media

Shuai S. A. Yuan; Viktar Asadchy; Philipp del Hougne

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arXiv · 2606.05877

Single-Frequency Symmetry-Empowered Through-Barrier Sensing in Reconfigurable Complex Media

Shuai S. A. Yuan·Viktar Asadchy·Philipp del Hougne

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Abstract

Mirror symmetry can strongly enhance the transmission of waves through a barrier inside a complex medium. We recently showed that this phenomenon enables quantitative through-barrier sensing: by tuning programmable scatterers on one side of the barrier to maximize the broadband total transmission through the barrier, the characteristics of scatterers at mirror-symmetric positions on the other side of the barrier can be determined. Considering a sufficiently large bandwidth was crucial to ensure that no accidental narrowband asymmetric resonance can outperform the symmetry-induced transmission enhancement. Here, we overcome this scheme's vexing need for a large bandwidth by replacing the underlying frequency diversity with configurational diversity. Specifically, we introduce auxiliary tunable scatterers at mirror-symmetric positions on either side of the barrier and sweep their characteristics through a series of random mirror-symmetric configurations. We tune the programmable main scatterers on one side of the barrier to maximize the average of the total through-barrier transmission over a series of configurations of the auxiliary scatterers at a single frequency, in order to sense the characteristics of the main scatterers on the other side of the barrier. We systematically study the accuracy of our single-frequency sensing scheme based on a multiport-network system model that cascades two mirror-related wave-chaotic cavities with a weakly transmitting barrier in between. We further examine an extension to non-reciprocal chaotic cavities involving circulators. Altogether, our results establish configurational diversity as a route to single-frequency, symmetry-empowered through-barrier sensing in reconfigurable complex media.

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Shuai S. A. Yuan, Viktar Asadchy, Philipp del Hougne. 2026-06-04. Single-Frequency Symmetry-Empowered Through-Barrier Sensing in Reconfigurable Complex Media. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.05877

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