Diffraction-Free Pulsed Optical Beams Via Space-Time Correlations

Abstract

Diffraction places a fundamental limitation on the distance an optical beam propagates before its size increases and spatial details blur. We show here that imposing a judicious correlation between spatial and spectral degrees of freedom of a pulsed beam can render its transverse spatial profile independent of location along the propagation axis, thereby arresting the spread of the time-averaged beam. Such correlation introduced into a beam with arbitrary spatial profile enables spatio-temporal dispersion to compensate for purely spatial dispersion that underlies diffraction. As a result, the spatio-temporal profile in the local time-frame of the pulsed beam remains invariant at all positions along the propagation axis. One-dimensional diffraction-free space-time beams are described - including non-accelerating Airy beams, despite the well-known fact that cosine waves and accelerating Airy beams are the only one-dimensional diffraction-free solutions to the monochromatic Helmholtz equation.

Publication Date

12-12-2016

Publication Title

Optics Express

Volume

24

Issue

25

Number of Pages

28659-28668

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.24.028659

Socpus ID

85006141272 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85006141272

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