Nonlinear spatiotemporal control of laser intensity

Abstract

Spatiotemporal control over the intensity of a laser pulse has the potential to enable or revolutionize a wide range of laser-based applications that currently suffer from the poor flexibility offered by conventional optics. Specifically, these optics limit the region of high intensity to the Rayleigh range and provide little to no control over the trajectory of the peak intensity. Here, we introduce a nonlinear technique for spatiotemporal control, the "self-flying focus," that produces an arbitrary trajectory intensity peak that can be sustained for distances comparable to the focal length. The technique combines temporal pulse shaping and the inherent nonlinearity of a medium to customize the time and location at which each temporal slice within the pulse comes to its focus.As an example of its utility, simulations show that the self-flying focus can form a highly uniform, meter-scale plasma suitable for advanced plasma-based accelerators.

Spatiotemporal engineering of matter-wave solitons in Bose–Einstein condensates

“…Frequently, the so created light patterns take the form of a "flying focus", with the focal point featuring controlled spatiotemporal motion [28]. Because nonlinearity is the underlying topic of the present article, it is relevant to mention that, very recently, a more powerful method was elaborated, which makes it possible to build optical fields with an embedded "self-flying-focus", by means of inherent nonlinearity of the medium [29]. Another experimentally implemented technique, which is very relevant in the context of models considered below in the present article, makes it possible to create arbitrarily structured averaged optical patterns "painted" by a rapidly moving laser beam [30].…”