The influence of Goos–Hänchen shift on total reflection of ultrashort light pulses

Abstract

The influence of Goos–Hänchen shift on the total reflection of ultrashort light pulses is analyzed. If the incident pulse has an infinite beam width, the reflected pulse keeps the same shape as the incident pulse, but experiences a time delay. If the incident pulse has a spatially limited beam width (the pulsed beam), the reflected pulsed beam undergoes a carrier frequency shift and other distortions that depend on the Goos–Hänchen shift, the magnitude of the beam width, and the duration of the pulse.

Goos–Hänchen shift of a mid-infrared femtosecond filament visualized by the laser coloration method

“…It should be noted that all these experiments, as well as recent studies of the GH effect using the weak measurement scheme [22,29,30] were performed with monochromatic light beams of continuous wave (CW) lasers or light-emitting diodes (LEDs). There exist only several theoretical works which deal with TIR of pulsed laser beams [31,32]. These studies predict carrier frequency and phase shifts as well as distortions of both spatial and temporal shape of the reflected pulsed beam including position-dependent changes of the pulse duration and chirp due to the frequency-dependent GH shift.…”

Total internal reflection of pulsed light beam upon ideal non-absorbing plasma

“…It is noted that although ( ! 0 , the phase difference between different x r will accumulate during the propagation of the reflected pulsed beam, and the phase front will tilt continuously compared with the pulse front, as discussed in the literature [27]. For example, phase difference in the reflected pulsed beam at x r and Àx r will increase by 2 with propagating an optical path of L ¼ c=ðx r Þ which means that L ¼ 3 m for ðW Þ ¼ 10 8 (a small value according to Figure 6), but L ¼ 0:3 mm for ðWÞ ¼ 10 12 (for TM polarization and 0 ¼ 85:7 ).…”

“…But these investigations were focused on the case of monochromatic light beam incidence, without discussions about the GH shift in terms of incident light pulses. Recently, we [27,28] have investigated the effect of GH shift on TIR of a pulsed light beam illuminating the interface of optical glass and vacuum, where GH shift is always positive, and some interesting results have been obtained. In fact, the TIR of a pulsed beam from vacuum upon metal is more interesting because a majority of reflective mirrors are based on this reflection.…”