Spatiotemporal characterization of ultrashort optical vortex pulses

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method to generate and fully characterize ultrashort optical vortex pulses in space, time, and frequency using a spiral phase plate and spatially resolved Fourier transform spectrometry, addressing challenges of broadband spectral properties.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining a spiral phase plate with a spatially resolved Fourier transform spectrometry technique for comprehensive ultrashort vortex pulse characterization.

Findings

Successful generation of few-cycle optical vortex pulses.

Complete spatiotemporal characterization of ultrashort vortex pulses.

Analysis of vortex generation performance across wavelengths.

Abstract

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 spatiotemporal domain, allowing us to completely characterize ultrashort vortex pulses in space, frequency, and time.