Controlling the velocity of ultrashort light pulses in vacuum through spatio-temporal couplings

Sainte-Marie, Antonin; Gobert, O.; Quéré, F.

doi:10.1364/optica.4.001298

Cited by 167 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Unfortunately, for the integrals with the Bessel functions that we encounter in Eqs. (12) and (13), no closed-form expressions can be found in tables of integrals. Therefore, we carry out the study on a 2D analog of the BG pulse, which, however, possesses all the features essential here.…”

Section: Solving the Paradox Of Spatially Averaged Group Velocitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Reexamination of group velocities of structured light pulses

Saari

2018

Phys. Rev. A

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Recently a series of theoretical and experimental papers on free-space propagation of pulsed Laguerre-Gaussian and Bessel beams was published, which reached contradictory and controversial results about group velocities of such pulses. Depending on the measurement scheme, the group velocity can be defined differently. We analyze how different versions of group velocity are related to the measurable travel time (time of flight) of the pulse between input (source) and output (detecting) planes. The analysis is tested on a theoretical model-the Bessel-Gauss pulse whose propagation path exhibits both subluminal and superluminal regions. Our main conclusion from resolving the contradictions in the literature is that different versions of group velocity are appropriate, depending on whether or not the beam is hollow and how the pulse is recorded in the output plane-integrally or with spatial resolution.

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Section: Solving the Paradox Of Spatially Averaged Group Velocitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Reexamination of group velocities of structured light pulses

Saari

2018

Phys. Rev. A

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“…The peak intensity of the pulse, and the resulting ionization front, travelled at a constant velocity determined by the coefficient of the spectral phase (i.e the chirp). By using a more complex spectral phase, the peak intensity can be made to travel with a dynamic velocity [16]. Following the procedure in Section III, the trajectory of the peak satisfies…”

Section: Advanced Ff and Iwav Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ionization waves of arbitrary velocity driven by a flying focus

et al. 2018

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A chirped laser pulse focused by a chromatic lens exhibits a dynamic, or "flying," focus in which the trajectory of the peak intensity decouples from the group velocity. In a medium, the flying focus can trigger an ionization front that follows this trajectory. By adjusting the chirp, the ionization front can be made to travel at an arbitrary velocity along the optical axis. We present analytical calculations and simulations describing the propagation of the flying focus pulse, the self-similar form of its intensity profile, and ionization wave formation. The ability to control the speed of the ionization wave and, in conjunction, mitigate plasma refraction has the potential to advance several laser-based applications, including Raman amplification, photon acceleration, high harmonic generation, and THz generation.

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“…It can easily be compensated by adjusting the relative angle between gratings in the compressor. At the next order, we observe a linear variation of the wavefront curvature (white), another known coupling leading to pulse front curvature in space-time, and to longitudinal chromatism around focus [15,36]. This typically results from the use of chromatic lenses in the laser system.…”

Section: Analysis Of the Beam Properties In The Near-fieldmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Measuring this field and using this information as an input for simulation codes would thus open the way to a finer understanding of laser-matter interaction experiments. Finally, spatio-temporal metrology is a prerequisite to spatio-temporal shaping of laser beams, which has recently been identified as a powerful way to tailor the beam properties, and thus to achieve advanced control of these interactions [13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-spectral metrology at focus of ultrashort lasers: a phase-retrieval approach

Borot¹,

Quéré²

2018

Opt. Express

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The complete characterization of an ultrashort laser beam ultimately requires the determination of its spatio-temporal electric field E(x, y, t), or its spatio-spectral counterpart E(x, y, ω). We describe a new measurement technique called INSIGHT, which determines E(x, y, ω), up to an unknown spatially-homogeneous spectral phase. Combining this information with a temporal measurement at a single point of the beam then enables the determination of the spatio-temporal field E(x, y, t). This technique is based on the combination of spatially-resolved Fourier-transform spectroscopy with an alternate-projection phase-retrieval algorithm. It can be applied to any reproducible laser source with a repetition rate higher than about 0.1 Hz, relies on a very simple device, does not require any reference beam, and circumvents the difficulty associated with the manipulation of large beam diameters by working in the vicinity of the beam focus. We demonstrate INSIGHT on a 100 TW-25 fs laser, and use the measurement results to introduce new representations for the analysis of spatio-temporal/spectral couplings of ultrashort lasers.

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Controlling the velocity of ultrashort light pulses in vacuum through spatio-temporal couplings

Cited by 167 publications

References 40 publications

Reexamination of group velocities of structured light pulses

Reexamination of group velocities of structured light pulses

Ionization waves of arbitrary velocity driven by a flying focus

Spatio-spectral metrology at focus of ultrashort lasers: a phase-retrieval approach

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