Related papers: Space-time wave packets
Airy waves, known for their non-diffracting and self-accelerating properties, have been extensively studied in spatial and temporal domains, but their spatiotemporal (ST) counterparts remain largely unexplored. We report the first…
When an optical pulse is focused into a multimode waveguide or fiber, the energy is divided among the available guided modes. Consequently, the initially localized intensity spreads transversely, the spatial profile undergoes rapid…
Propagation-invariant or non-diffracting optical beams have received considerable attention during the last two decades. However, the pulsed nature of light waves and the structured property of optical media like waveguides are often…
Space-time wave packets are propagation-invariant pulsed beams that travel in free space without diffraction or dispersion by virtue of tight correlations introduced into their spatio-temporal spectrum. Such correlations constitute an…
Optical beams with certain asymmetric profiles, such as the Airy beam, can depart from rectilinear propagation and instead travel along curved (typically parabolic) trajectories. Here we show that sculpting the spatiotemporal spectrum of…
We report on the diffraction-free propagation of space-time wave packets (STWPs) -- a class of propagation-invariant pulsed beams -- for $\sim\!1$ km in an open-air laser range in a low-turbulence scenario. Making use of $\approx\!100$-fs…
We introduce the unique class of propagation-invariant surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) representing pulsed surface wave packets propagating along unpatterned metal-dielectric interfaces and are localized in all dimensions - with…
Space-time structuring of light - where spatial and temporal degrees of freedom are deliberately coupled and controlled - is an emerging area of optics that enables novel configurations of electromagnetic fields. Of particular importance…
All known realizations of optical wave packets that accelerate along their propagation axis, such as Airy wave packets in dispersive media or wave-front-modulated X-waves, exhibit a constant acceleration; that is, the group velocity varies…
Space-time light structuring has emerged as a very powerful tool for controlling the propagation dynamics of pulsed beam. The ability to manipulate and generate space-time distributions of light has been remarkably enhanced in past few…
We study the dynamics of space-time non-diffracting wavepackets, commonly known as light bullets, in a spatiotemporally varying medium. We show that by spatiotemporal refraction, a monochromatic focused beam can be converted to a light…
Because surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are surface waves characterized by one free transverse dimension, the only monochromatic diffraction-free spatial profiles for SPPs are cosine and Airy waves. Pulsed SPP wave packets have been…
Spatial structuring of an optical pulse can lead in some cases upon free propagation to changes in its temporal profile. For example, introducing conventional angular dispersion into the field results in the pulse encountering…
Space-time wave packets (STWPs) are pulsed optical beams whose spatiotemporal structure enables propagation invariance. However, STWPs allow for a unique propagation configuration that we call axial spectral encoding, in which the spectrum…
The refraction of space-time (ST) wave packets offers many fascinating surprises with respect to conventional pulsed beams. In paper (I) of this sequence, we described theoretically the refraction of all families of ST wave packets at…
Space-time modulation of refractive index can produce synthetically moving interfaces with arbitrary apparent velocities, including superluminal motion, offering new ways to control light in dynamic media. On the other hand, space-time wave…
The Wigner distribution function and its spatial-angular moments (intensity-moments) are known as efficient instruments for characterization of complex quasimonochromatic light beams and their transformations. In this paper, the…
Spatio-temporal optical vortices (STOVs) are a new type of optical orbital angular momentum (OAM) with optical phase circulation in space-time. In prior work [N. Jhajj et al., Phys. Rev X 6, 031037 (2016)], we demonstrated that a STOV is a…
In addition to longitudinal spin angular momentum (SAM) along the axis of propagation of light, spatially structured electromagnetic fields such as evanescent waves and focused beams have recently been found to possess transverse SAM in the…
Space-time wavepackets (STWPs) have received significant attention since they can propagate in free space at arbitrary group velocity without dispersion and diffraction. However, at present, the generation of STWPs has been limited to the…