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Synthesis of ultrafast wavepackets with tailored spatiotemporal properties

Nature Photonics volume 16, pages 686–691 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Sculpting light in space and time can provide unprecedented opportunities in many areas of science and technology, ranging from extreme nonlinear optics and quantum networks to new families of ultrafast fibre amplifiers. Although endeavours in accessing the light’s temporal and spatial degrees of freedom have been carried out, controlling the electromagnetic field in its entirety has always been a major challenge. Here we demonstrate a versatile approach to synthesize convoluted ultrafast light structures in which the spatial and temporal dimensions are precisely correlated. By utilizing a two-stage reconfigurable module, we produce separable and non-separable trains of ultrafast wavepackets with time-varying dynamic angular momentum and tailored spectral characteristics. The generated light states are observed using mode- and frequency-resolved tomographic methodologies capable of reconstructing their complex field structure in space and time. Our results could have ramifications in a broad range of applications such as high-resolution microscopy, high-harmonic generation and laser micromachining.

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Fig. 1: Spatiotemporal moulding of light.
Fig. 2: Synthesized spatiotemporal wavepacket with spectral and time-dependent OAM.
Fig. 3: An optical wavepacket with an intricate ST texture.
Fig. 4: On-demand generation of spatiotemporal wavepackets.

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Data availability

All data that support the findings of this study are available within the paper and the Supplementary Information and are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Code availability

All the relevant computing codes used in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This effort was sponsored, in part, by the Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research, (N00014-20-1-2789); the National Science Foundation (EECS-1711230); the Simons Foundation (733682); the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF; 2016381); the Army Research Office of Scientific Research (W911NF1710553 and W911NF1910426); and NASA (80NSSC21K0624).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, the University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

    Daniel Cruz-Delgado, Stephanos Yerolatsitis, Demetrios N. Christodoulides, Rodrigo Amezcua-Correa & Miguel A. Bandres

  2. Nokia Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ, USA

    Nicolas K. Fontaine

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  1. Daniel Cruz-Delgado
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  2. Stephanos Yerolatsitis
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Contributions

All authors contributed to all aspects of this work. D.C.D. performed the experiments in consultation with all the team members.

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Correspondence to Rodrigo Amezcua-Correa or Miguel A. Bandres.

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Nature Photonics thanks Jose Azana, Pierre Bejot and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–19 and Sections I–IX.

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Cruz-Delgado, D., Yerolatsitis, S., Fontaine, N.K. et al. Synthesis of ultrafast wavepackets with tailored spatiotemporal properties. Nat. Photon. 16, 686–691 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-01055-2

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