Ultrashort laser pulses are described as having chromatic astigmatism, where the astigmatic phase varies linearly with the offset from the central frequency. Such a spatio-temporal coupling not only induces interesting space-frequency and space-time effects, but it removes cylindrical symmetry. We analyze the quantitative effects on the spatio-temporal pulse structure on the collimated beam and as it propagates through a focus, with both the fundamental Gaussian beam and Laguerre-Gaussian beams. Chromatic astigmatism is a new type of spatio-temporal coupling towards arbitrary higher complexity beams that still have a simple description, and may be applied to imaging, metrology, or ultrafast light-matter interaction.
Citation
Spencer W Jolly. Ultrashort laser pulses with chromatic astigmatism. Optics express. 2023 Mar 13;31(6):10237-10248
PMID: 37157575
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