Spatially induced spatiotemporally nonspreading
Airy–Bessel wave packets
Zhijun Ren,* Hongzhen Jin, Yile Shi, Jiancheng Xu, Weidong Zhou, and Hui Wang
Institute of Information Optics, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China
*Corresponding author: renzhijun@zjnu.cn
Received January 20, 2012; revised February 28, 2012; accepted February 28, 2012;
posted February 29, 2012 (Doc. ID 161711); published May 11, 2012
By studying the effect of spatially induced group velocity dispersion (SIGVD) during the propagation of ultrashort
pulsed Bessel beams in free space, we numerically prove that third-order SIGVD can temporally cause Gaussian
distribution of pulsed Bessel beams to gradually evolve as unsymmetrical trailing oscillatory structures. The pulse
shape is confirmed to be temporal Airy distributions on the basis of the cross-correlation function. Therefore, it is
demonstrated that the scheme of generating spatiotemporally nonspreading Airy–Bessel wave packets in free
space is possible by using a precompensating second-order SIGVD. The results of numerical simulation show
that the quasi-Airy pulses induced by third-order SIGVD are temporally nonspreading during propagation in dis-
persive media. The reasons for nonspreading of such Airy distribution pulses are phenomenologically analyzed by
a time–frequency Wigner distribution function of the pulse. © 2012 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: 070.7345, 060.5530, 260.2030.
1. INTRODUCTION
It is well known that propagational characteristics of an
electromagnetic wave are governed by the Maxwell wave
equation. Diffraction and dispersion are key transmission phe-
nomena of localized electromagnetic wave packets, which
also affect all classical wave fields without exception. Diffrac-
tion makes waves spread transversally to the intended propa-
gation direction, and dispersion makes wave packets spread
temporally [
1].
Researchers have been trying to produce localized optical
wave packets without spatiotemporal spread during propaga-
tion in free space because of the broad possibilities of their
optical applications, such as superresolution microscopy, op-
tical manipulation, optical coherence tomography, light–
matter interactions, and long-range signal transmission [
2–4].
Fortunately, a diffraction-free mode can be obtained in the
well-known Bessel and Airy function [
5–6]. In fact, the plane
wave is also a type of diffraction-free mode solution of the wave
equation. However, the central spot radius of Bessel and
Airy beams can be narrowed down to the order of one wave-
length, which is almost equivalent to the focal spot size [
5,7].
These are essentially focus beams with an extended depth of
focus, which is very significant for some types of physical
applications.
A pulsed nondiffraction beam can retain spatially diffrac-
tion-free propagational properties, but it will become tempo-
rally broadened because of the inevitable dispersion effect.
Some schemes of the compensation of the ultrashort pulse’s
temporal spread have been proposed, hence localized waves
can be generated in dispersive media [
1,8,9]. But the pulse
cannot stably propagate in free space. Because the Bessel
and Airy function is an invariant propagation mode in free
space, the Bessel and Airy mode can be potentially used
not only in spatial but also in temporal domains. Spatiotem-
poral Airy–Bessel and Airy–Airy configuration wave packets
in free space have been generated on the basis of the same
grating–telescope combination [
2,3]. Their common proper-
ties are that the spatial distribution is invariant in the Bessel
or Airy mode and the temporal distribution is invariant in the
Airy mode. In addition, being exotic spatiotemporally non-
spreading localized waves, they are also called light bullets
because of their particlelike nature [
2].
In this study, by studying the effect of spatially induced
group velocity dispersion (SIGVD) on propagation of ultra-
short pulsed Bessel beams in free space [
1,10,11], we found
that pulsed Bessel beams temporally broaden because of the
influence of second-order SIGVD. Then, it is demonstrated
that third-order SIGVD can temporally cause Gaussian distri-
bution of pulsed Bessel beams to gradually evolve as an Airy
profile pulse. It is just the physical groundwork of generating
Airy–Bessel wave packets in free space. Therefore, we adopt
schemes for generating spatiotemporally nonspreading Airy–
Bessel wave packets in free space by precompensating
second-order SIGVD.
2. THEORY
The Helmholtz equation governs the propagation of an optical
field
∇
2
E k
2
E 0; (1)
where Ex; y; z; ω is the amplitude of the optical field, opera-
tor ∇
2
is equal to ∂
2
x
∂
2
y
∂
2
z
∇
2
⊥
∂
2
z
, ∇
2
⊥
is the trans-
verse Laplace operator, x and y are the transverse spatial
coordinates, z denotes coordinates along the direction of
propagation, and kωω∕c is the wave vector for each
frequency.
In 1987, Durnin et al. theoretically proved that the
Helmholtz equation has diffraction-free Bessel mode solu-
tions. The transverse distribution of the Bessel mode is [
5]
848 J. Opt. Soc. Am. A / Vol. 29, No. 6 / June 2012 Ren et al.
1084-7529/12/060848-06$15.00/0 © 2012 Optical Society of America