In this study, we demonstrate the concept of combining optical combs with optical vortices for the first time. By combining the advantages of the both light sources, we realize an optical vortex comb technology for arbitrary spatiotemporal phase manipulation. This idea corresponds to simultaneous control of the longitudinal and transverse modes of light based on the high controllability of the optical comb. As a proof-of-concept experiment, we applied an optical vortex comb to the generation and rotational control of a ring-shaped optical lattice. Furthermore, to demonstrate the utility of this technique, a rotational optical manipulation of microspheres was demonstrated using the optical ring lattice as an optical tweezer light. Here, we present a new applicability of the optical comb by utilizing its characteristics far beyond the conventional range.
Spatiotemporal optical vortices (STOVs) are a new type of intrinsic optical orbital angular momentum (OAM) structure in which the OAM vector is orthogonal to the propagation direction [Optica 6, 1547, (2019)] and the optical phase circulates in space-time. Here, we experimentally and theoretically demonstrate, for the first time, the generation of the second harmonic of a STOV-carrying pulse along with the conservation of STOV-based OAM. Our experiments verify that individual photons can have intrinsic orbital angular momentum perpendicular to their propagation direction.
Recently, a spatiotemporal optical vortex (STOV) with a transverse orbital angular momentum (OAM) has been generated from coherent ultrafast pulses using mode-locked lasers. In contrast, we demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that a STOV can be generated from a light source with partial temporal coherence with fluctuating temporal phase. By eliminating the need of mode-locked laser sources, the partially coherent STOV will serve as a convenient and cost-effective transverse OAM source.
As a new degree of freedom for optical manipulation, recently spatiotemporal optical vortices (STOVs) carrying transverse orbital angular momentums have been experimentally demonstrated with pulse shapers. Here a spatiotemporal differentiator is proposed to generate STOVs with transverse orbital angular momentum. In order to create phase singularity in the spatiotemporal domain, the spatiotemporal differentiator is designed by breaking spatial mirror symmetry. In contrast to pulse shapers, the device proposed here is a simple one-dimensional periodic nanostructure and thus it is much more comp…
We introduce a model for spatiotemporal modelocking in multimode fiber lasers, which is based on the (3+1)-dimensional cubic-quintic complex Ginzburg-Landau equation (cGLE) with conservative and dissipative nonlinearities and a 2-dimensional transverse trapping potential. Systematic numerical analysis reveals a variety of stable nonlinear modes, including stable fundamental solitons and breathers, as well as solitary vortices with winding number $n=1$, while vortices with $n=2$ are unstable, splitting into persistently rotating bound states of two unitary vortices. A characteristic feature of …
Shenzhen University（深圳大学）；East China Normal University（华东师范大学）；University of Shanghai for Science and Technology（上海理工大学）；Northwestern Polytechnical University（西北工业大学）
Using an example of a Raman active medium we describe how a common nonlinear process of four-wave mixing can be used to induce strong coupling between the spatial and temporal degrees of freedom in optical waves. This coupling produces several unexpected effects. Amongst those are cascaded excitation of multiply charged optical vortices, spatial focusing in a nonlinearly defocusing medium and generation of helically shaped spatio-temporal optical solitons.
Generation of few-cycle optical vortex pulses is challenging due to the large spectral bandwidths, as most vortex generation techniques are designed for monochromatic light. In this work, we use a spiral phase plate to generate few-cycle optical vortices from an ultrafast titanium:sapphire oscillator, and characterize them in the spatiotemporal domain using a recently introduced technique based on spatially resolved Fourier transform spectrometry. The performance of this simple approach to the generation of optical vortices is analyzed from a wavelength dependent perspective, as well as in the…
Orbital angular momentum of spatiotemporal vortices: a ray-mechanical analogy
The Institute of Optics, University of Rochester（罗切斯特大学光学研究所）；Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC)（圣塞巴斯蒂安国际物理中心）；IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science（伊卡巴斯基克，巴斯克科学基金会）；Centre of Excellence ENSEMBLE3 Sp. z o.o.（卓越中心 ENSEMBLE3 有限责任公司）；Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Centrale Med, Institut Fresnel, UMR 7249（艾克斯-马赛大学、法国国家科学研究中心、中央理工学院马赛分校、菲涅耳研究所）
Optical parametric amplification of spatiotemporal optical vortices
Zhejiang Key Laboratory of 3D Micro/Nano Fabrication and Characterization, Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, School of Engineering, Westlake University（西湖大学工程学院电子信息工程系三维微纳加工与表征浙江省重点实验室）；School of Optical and Electronic Information and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学光学与电子信息学院/武汉光电国家研究中心）；Westlake-Kromoson Joint Laboratory of Light-Field Intelligence, School of Engineering, Westlake University（西湖大学工程学院光场智能西湖-科慕森联合实验室）
Vortex solitons (dark solitons) are described in self-defocusing Kerr media whose phase line singularity is not parallel to the propagation direction, but is perpendicular or tilted almost arbitrary angles, depending on the medium linear dispersion. These solitons broaden the so-called spatiotemporal optical vortices recently observed in experiments to the nonlinear realm, opening new perspectives in practical applications of optical vortices.
Vortices are whirling disturbances commonly found in nature ranging from tremendously small scales in Bose-Einstein condensates to cosmologically colossal scales in spiral galaxies. An optical vortex, generally associated with a spiral phase, can carry orbital angular momentum (OAM). The optical OAM can either be in the longitudinal direction if the spiral phase twists in the spatial domain or in the transverse direction if the phase rotates in the spatiotemporal domain. In this article, we demonstrate the intersection of spatiotemporal vortices and spatial vortices in a wave packet. As a resu…
Spatiotemporal Optical Vortices From All-Dielectric Bilayer Metagratings
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)（香港科技大学（广州））；University of Electronic Science and Technology of China（电子科技大学）；Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院）；Wuhan University of Technology（武汉理工大学）
In any form of wave propagation, strong spatiotemporal coupling appears when non-elementary, three-dimensional wave-packets are composed by superimposing pure plane waves, or spontaneously generated by light-matter interaction and nonlinear processes. Ultrashort pulses with orbital angular momentum (OAM), or ultrashort vortices, furnish a critical paradigm in which the analysis of the spatiotemporal coupling in the form of temporal-OAM coupling can be carried out accurately by analytical tools. By generalizing and unifying previously reported results, we show that universal and spatially heter…
Spatiotemporal optical vortices (STOVs) carrying transverse orbital angular momentum (OAM) are of rapidly growing interest for the field of optics due to the new degree of freedom that can be exploited. In this paper, we propose cylindrical vector two dimensional STOVs (2D-STOVs) containing two orthogonal transverse OAMs in both x-t and y-t planes for the first time, and investigate the tightly focusing of such fields using the Richards-Wolf vectorial diffraction theory. Highly confined spatiotemporal wavepackets with polarization structure akin to toroidal topology is generated, whose spatiot…
We present the first experimental evidence, supported by theory and simulation, of spatiotemporal optical vortices (STOVs). Quantized STOVs are a fundamental element of the nonlinear collapse and subsequent propagation of short optical pulses in material media. A STOV consists of a ring-shaped null in the electromagnetic field about which the phase is spiral, forming a dynamic torus which is concentric with and tracks the propagating pulse. Depending on the sign of the material dispersion, the local electromagnetic energy flow is saddle or spiral about the STOV. STOVs are born and evolve conse…
By means of a systematic numerical analysis, we demonstrate that hexagonal lattices of parallel linearly-coupled waveguides, with the intrinsic cubic self-focusing nonlinearity, give rise to three species of stable semi-discrete complexes (which are continuous in the longitudinal direction), with embedded vorticity S: triangular modes with S=1, hexagonal ones with S=2, both centered around an empty central core, and compact triangles with S=1, which do not not include the empty site. Collisions between stable triangular vortices are studied too. These waveguiding lattices can be realized in op…
We investigate the various routes to spatiotemporal chaos in Kerr optical frequency combs obtained through pumping an ultra-high quality whispering-gallery mode resonator with a continuous-wave laser. The Lugiato-Lefever model is used to build bifurcation diagrams with regards to the parameters that are externally controllable, namely, the frequency and the power of the pumping laser. We show that the spatiotemporal chaos emerging from Turing patterns and solitons display distinctive dynamical features. Experimental spectra of chaotic Kerr combs are also presented for both cases, in excellent …
Isolated attosecond spatio-temporal optical vortices: Interplay between the topological charge and orbital angular momentum scaling in high harmonic generation
We consider reflection and transmission of 2D quantum wavepackets with phase vortices (also known in optics as spatiotemporal vortex pulses) at potential step-like, delta-function, and rectangular barriers. The presence of a vortex significantly modifies the Wigner time delays and Goos-Hänchen shifts, previously studied for Gaussian-like wavepackets. In particular, the scattered wavepackets undergo non-zero time delays and lateral shifts even for purely real scattering coefficients, when the standard Wigner and Artmann formulae vanish. We derive analytical expressions for the vortex-induced ti…
Spatiotemporal extreme events are interesting phenomena, both from a fundamental point of view, as manifestations of complexity in dynamical systems, and for their possible applications in different research fields. Here, we present some recent results about extreme events in spatially extended semiconductor laser systems (broad-area VCSELs) with coherent injection. We study the statistics of spatiotemporal intensity peaks occurring in the transverse (x,y) section of the field perpendicular to the light propagation direction and identify regions in the parameter space where extreme events are …
We establish an exact partial differential equation to model Kerr comb generation in whispering-gallery mode resonators. This equation is a variant of the Lugiato-Lefever equation that includes higher-order dispersion and nonlinearity. This spatio-temporal model, whose main variable is the total intracavity field, is significantly more suitable than the modal expansion approach for the theoretical understanding and the numerical simulation of wide-span combs. It allows us to explore pulse formation in which a large number of modes interact cooperatively. This versatile approach can be straight…
