Space-time wave packets localized in all dimensions

Yessenov, Murat; Free, Justin; Chen, Zhaozhong; Johnson, Eric G.; Lavery, Martin P. J.; Alonso, Miguel Ángel Verdugo; Abouraddy, Ayman F.

doi:10.48550/arxiv.2111.03095

Cited by 10 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 14 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…One of these strategies (developed by Alan Willner's group at USC) is suitable for implementation with a laser-comb source having discrete spectral lines [341]. The other strategy (developed by our group at CREOL, UCF) is suitable for an optical source having a continuous temporal spectrum [340]. The 3D ST wave packets produced with these two techniques have similar characteristics to those of the ST wave packets described in this Review.…”

Section: Prospects For Localizing St Wave Packets In All Dimensionsmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Recently, two experimental approaches have been devised to address this perennial challenge and yield 3D ST wave packets localized in all dimensions [340,341]. One of these strategies (developed by Alan Willner's group at USC) is suitable for implementation with a laser-comb source having discrete spectral lines [341].…”

Section: Prospects For Localizing St Wave Packets In All Dimensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We have recently realized ST supermodes in a planar waveguide [395]. In light of the recent developments in synthesizing 3D ST wave packets [340], especially using discrete laser combs [341], it is now conceivable that ST wave packets can be coupled to ST supermodes in multimode optical fibers.…”

Section: St Supermodesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Space-time wave packets

Yessenov¹,

Hall²,

Schepler³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Space-time' (ST) wave packets constitute a broad class of pulsed optical fields that are rigidly transported in linear media without diffraction or dispersion, and are therefore propagation-invariant in absence of optical nonlinearities or waveguiding structures. Such wave packets exhibit unique characteristics, such as controllable group velocities in free space and exotic refractive phenomena. At the root of of these behaviors is a fundamental feature underpinning ST wave packets: their spectra are not separable with respect to the spatial and temporal degrees of freedom. Indeed, the spatio-temporal structure is endowed with non-differentiable angular dispersion, in which each spatial frequency is associated with a single prescribed wavelength. Furthermore, deviation from this particular spatio-temporal structure yields novel behaviors that depart from propagation invariance in a precise manner, such as acceleration with an arbitrary axial distribution of the group velocity, tunable dispersion profiles, and Talbot effects in space-time. Although the basic concept of ST wave packets has been known since the 1980's, only very recently has rapid experimental development emerged. These advances are made possible by innovations in spatio-temporal Fourier synthesis, thereby opening a new frontier for structured light at the intersection of beam optics and ultrafast optics. Furthermore, a plethora of novel spatio-temporally structured optical fields (such as flying-focus wave packets, toroidal pulses, and ST optical vortices) are now providing a swathe of surprising characteristics, ranging from tunable group velocities to transverse orbital angular momentum. We review the historical development of ST wave packets, describe the new experimental approach for their efficient synthesis, and enumerate the various new results and potential applications for ST wave packets and other spatio-temporally structured fields that are rapidly accumulating, before casting an eye on a future roadmap for this field.

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Section: Prospects For Localizing St Wave Packets In All Dimensionsmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Prospects For Localizing St Wave Packets In All Dimensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Space-time wave packets

Yessenov¹,

Hall²,

Schepler³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…Both of these obstacles are overcome by exploiting the universal angular dispersion synthesizer in [59]. Although such an approach intro-duces arbitrary angular dispersion in one transverse dimension only, recent progress has extended this strategy to both transverse dimensions [73][74][75].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Canceling and inverting normal and anomalous group-velocity dispersion using space-time wave packets

Hall¹,

Abouraddy²

2022

Preprint

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Angular dispersion can counterbalance normal group-velocity dispersion (GVD) that increases the wave-vector length in a dispersive medium. By tilting the wave vector, angular dispersion reduces the axial wave number in this case to match the pre-GVD value. By the same token, however, angular dispersion fails to counterbalance anomalous GVD, which in contrast reduces the wavevector length. Consequently, GVD-cancellation via angular dispersion has not been demonstrated to date in the anomalous dispersion regime. We synthesize here structured femtosecond pulsed beams known as 'space-time' wave packets designed to realize dispersion-cancellation symmetrically in either the normal-or anomalous-GVD regimes by virtue of non-differentiable angular dispersion inculcated into the pulsed field. Furthermore, we also verify GVD-inversion: reversing the GVD sign experienced by the field with respect to that dictated by the chromatic dispersion of the medium itself.

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“…Besides propagation invariance in free space [34][35][36], as well as in non-dispersive [37] or dispersive [38][39][40][41][42][43] dielectrics, ST wave packets feature a host of unique characteristics [32,33], including tunable group velocities [44,45] and anomalous refraction [46,47]. A critical feature of ST wave packets makes them particularly useful candidates for SPPs: their diffraction-free behavior is independent of dimensionality [33] (whether one [28] or two [48,49] transverse spatial coordinates are involved), making them excellent candidates for plasmonic applications that require maintaining transverse spatial localization in sensing and imaging.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%