Ultrabroadband Airy light bullets

Abstract

Abstract. We present the measurements of the spatiotemporal impulse responses of two optical systems for launching ultrashort Airy pulses, incl. ultrabroadband nonspreading Airy beams whose main lobe size remains invariantly small over propagation. First, a spatial light modulator and, second, a custom refractive element with continuous surface profile were used to impose the required cubic phase on the input field. White-light spectral interferometry setup based on the SEA TADPOLE technique was applied for full spatio-temporal characterization of the impulse response with ultrahigh temporal resolution approaching a single cycle of the light wave. The results were compared to the theoretical model.

Nonlinear dynamics of Airy-vortex 3D wave packets: emission of vortex light waves

“…Recently, observations of an electronic Airy beam [11] as well as Airy waves in plasmonic structures [12] have also been reported. Furthermore, multidimensional spatiotemporal Airy light bullets have also been demonstrated [2,[13][14][15][16][17]. In the high power propagation regime the Airy wave structure gets distorted in the presence of a selffocusing Kerr nonlinearity, while the self-healing properties of Airy beams still lead to a strong resistance to the complete destruction [18].…”