Anomalous optical Anderson localization (AOAL) in mixed one-dimensional (1D) photonic quasicrystals with matching impedance is obtained when the average refractive index of left- and right-handed layers is approximately zero. The transport properties of ordinary and anomalous localization are investigated and compared. The difficulties in expressing analytically the scaling factors of the mixed photonic quasicrystals are illustrated from Hamiltonian-map analysis. An approach based on transfer matrix method is proposed to simulate the localization behavior. From the simulation, it is found that the narrow distribution of the phase shift is responsible for AOAL in the mixed photonic structures. The scaling factors of AOAL decrease with the broadening of the phase shift distribution. The maximum phase shifts of the mixed photonic structures determine the lower boundary of the anomalous localization. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America
