Self-reconstructing spatiotemporal light bullets.

We show that spatiotemporal light bullets generated by self-focusing and filamentation of 100 fs, 1.8 μm pulses in a dielectric medium with anomalous group velocity dispersion (sapphire) are extremely robust to external perturbations. We present the experimental results supported by the numerical simulations that demonstrate complete spatiotemporal self-reconstruction of the light bullet after hitting an obstacle, which blocks its intense core carrying the self-compressed pulse, in nonlinear as well as in linear (free-space) propagation regimes.

[1]  K. Chung Self-reconstruction of obstructed Bessel-X pulses modeled by the FDTD method , 2014 .

[2]  Aurélien Houard,et al.  Whole life cycle of femtosecond ultraviolet filaments in water , 2014 .

[3]  D. Faccio,et al.  Nature of spatiotemporal light bullets in bulk Kerr media. , 2014, Physical review letters.

[4]  S. Chekalin,et al.  Light bullets from near-IR filament in fused silica , 2013 .

[5]  J. Biegert,et al.  Self-compression to sub-3-cycle duration of mid-infrared optical pulses in dielectrics. , 2013, Optics express.

[6]  M. Richardson,et al.  Blueshifted Continuum Peaks from Filamentation in the Anomalous Dispersion Regime , 2013 .

[7]  A. Couairon,et al.  Self-guided propagation of ultrashort laser pulses in the anomalous dispersion region of transparent solids: a new regime of filamentation. , 2013, Physical review letters.

[8]  M. Porras,et al.  On the stabilizing effect of nonlinear energy losses in light bullet propagation , 2013 .

[9]  A. Couairon,et al.  Multi-octave supercontinuum generation from mid-infrared filamentation in a bulk crystal , 2012, Nature Communications.

[10]  A. Couairon,et al.  Practitioner’s guide to laser pulse propagation models and simulation , 2011 .

[11]  M. Porras Nonlinear light bullets in purely lossy, self-focusing media , 2011 .

[12]  M. Porras A dissipative attractor in the spatiotemporal collapse of ultrashort light pulses. , 2010, Optics express.

[13]  Arnaud Couairon,et al.  Energy-flux characterization of conical and space-time coupled wave packets , 2010 .

[14]  V. Michau,et al.  Femtosecond filamentation in turbulent air , 2008 .

[15]  G. Steinmeyer,et al.  Temporal self-restoration of compressed optical filaments. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[16]  D. Christodoulides,et al.  Self-healing properties of optical Airy beams. , 2008, Optics express.

[17]  P. Sprangle,et al.  Effect of an energy reservoir on the atmospheric propagation of laser-plasma filaments. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[18]  Paolo Di Trapani,et al.  Ultrashort laser pulse filamentation from spontaneous X-Wave formation in air. , 2008, Optics express.

[19]  A. Couairon,et al.  Femtosecond filamentation in transparent media , 2007 .

[20]  D. Faccio,et al.  Conical emission, pulse splitting, and X-wave parametric amplification in nonlinear dynamics of ultrashort light pulses. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[21]  A. Becker,et al.  Experiment and simulations on the energy reservoir effect in femtosecond light filaments. , 2005, Optics letters.

[22]  J. Wolf,et al.  Multifilamentation transmission through fog. , 2005, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[23]  Jin Yu,et al.  Propagation of fs TW laser filaments in adverse atmospheric conditions , 2005 .

[24]  K. Dholakia,et al.  Bessel beams: Diffraction in a new light , 2005 .

[25]  P Di Trapani,et al.  Self-reconstruction of light filaments. , 2004, Optics letters.

[26]  U. Peschel,et al.  Interaction of femtosecond light filaments with obscurants in aerosols. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[27]  D. Faccio,et al.  Nonlinear unbalanced bessel beams: stationary conical waves supported by nonlinear losses. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[28]  Miroslav Kolesik,et al.  Self-healing femtosecond light filaments. , 2004, Optics letters.

[29]  E. Wright,et al.  Dynamic nonlinear X waves for femtosecond pulse propagation in water. , 2003, Physical review letters.

[30]  A. Piskarskas,et al.  Three dimensional imaging of short pulses , 2003, physics/0307137.

[31]  F. Courvoisier,et al.  Ultraintense light filaments transmitted through clouds , 2003 .

[32]  J V Moloney,et al.  Dynamic spatial replenishment of femtosecond pulses propagating in air , 1998, Technical Digest. Summaries of Papers Presented at the International Quantum Electronics Conference. Conference Edition. 1998 Technical Digest Series, Vol.7 (IEEE Cat. No.98CH36236).

[33]  L. Keldysh,et al.  IONIZATION IN THE FIELD OF A STRONG ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE , 1964 .

[34]  A. Dubietis,et al.  Filamentation of ultrashort light pulses in a liquid scattering medium , 2009 .

[35]  Valdas Sirutkaitis,et al.  On the Role of Conical Waves in Self-focusing and Filamentation of Femtosecond Pulses with Nonlinear Losses , 2009 .