Lin Qinggang, Feng Fu, Cai Yi, Lu Xiaowei, Zeng Xuanke, Wang Congying, Xu Shixiang, Li Jingzhen, Yuan Xiaocong
Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems of Ministry of Education and Guangdong Province, College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, 518060, Shenzhen, China.
Research Center for Humanoid Sensing, Zhejiang Laboratory, 311100, Hangzhou, China.
Nat Commun. 2024 Mar 18;15(1):2416. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-46802-x.
Traditionally, manipulation of spatiotemporal coupling (STC) of the ultrafast light fields can be actualized in the space-spectrum domain with some 4-f pulse shapers, which suffers usually from some limitations, such as spectral/pixel resolution and information crosstalk associated with the 4-f pulse shapers. This work introduces a novel mechanism for direct space-time manipulation of ultrafast light fields to overcome the limitations. This mechanism combines a space-dependent time delay with some spatial geometrical transformations, which has been experimentally proved by generating a high-quality STC light field, called light spring (LS). The LS, owing a broad topological charge bandwidth of 11.5 and a tunable central topological charge from 2 to -11, can propagate with a stable spatiotemporal intensity structure from near to far fields. This achievement implies the mechanism provides an efficient way to generate complex STC light fields, such as LS with potential applications in information encryption, optical communication, and laser-plasma acceleration.
传统上，超快光场的时空耦合（STC）操控可通过一些4-f脉冲整形器在空间频谱域中实现，但其通常存在一些局限性，例如与4-f脉冲整形器相关的光谱/像素分辨率和信息串扰。这项工作引入了一种用于超快光场直接时空操控的新机制，以克服这些局限性。该机制将与空间相关的时间延迟和一些空间几何变换相结合，通过生成一种称为光弹簧（LS）的高质量STC光场在实验上得到了验证。LS具有11.5的宽拓扑电荷带宽以及从2到-11的可调中心拓扑电荷，能够以稳定的时空强度结构从近场传播到远场。这一成果意味着该机制提供了一种生成复杂STC光场的有效方法，例如具有在信息加密、光通信和激光等离子体加速等方面潜在应用的LS。
