A re-formulation of the transfer matrix method for calculating wave-functions in higher dimensional disordered open systems Original Research Article

We present a numerically stable re-formulation of the transfer matrix method (TMM). The iteration form of the traditional TMM is transformed into solving a set of linear equations. Our method gains the new ability of calculating accurate wave-functions of higher dimensional disordered systems. It also shows higher efficiency than the traditional TMM when treating finite systems. In contrast to the diagonalization method, our method not only provides a new route for calculating the wave-function corresponding to the boundary conditions of open systems, but also has advantages that the calculating wave energy/frequency can be tuned continuously and the efficiency is much higher. Our new method is further used to identify the necklace state in the two dimensional disordered Anderson model, where it shows the advantage in cooperating the wave-functions with the continuous transmission spectrum of open systems. The new formulation is very simple to implement and can be readily generalized to various systems such as spin–orbit coupling systems or optical systems.