English

Spatio-temporal characterization of ultrashort vector pulses

Optics 2024-06-12 v1

Abstract

Ultrafast vectorially polarized pulses have found many applications in information and energy transfer owing mainly to the presence of strong longitudinal components and their space-polarization non-separability. Due to their broad spectrum, such pulses often exhibit space-time couplings, which significantly affect the pulse propagation dynamics leading to reduced energy density or utilized to create new effects like a rotating or sliding wavefront at focus. Here, we present a new method for the spatio-temporal characterization of ultrashort cylindrical vector pulses based on a combination of spatially resolved Fourier transform spectroscopy and Mach-Zehnder interferometry. The method provides access to spatially resolved spectral amplitudes and phases of all polarization components of the pulse. We demonstrate the capabilities of the method by completely characterizing a 1010~fs radially polarized pulse from a Ti:sapphire laser at 800800~nm.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2101.11651,
  title  = {Spatio-temporal characterization of ultrashort vector pulses},
  author = {Apostolos Zdagkas and Venkatram Nalla and Nikitas Papasimakis and Nikolay I. Zheludev},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.11651},
  year   = {2024}
}