Optical spatiotemporal pulse train solitons

Three dimensional optical spatiotemporal solitons (sometimes referred to as “light bullets”) are packets of self-localized electromagnetic radiation that propagate without spreading out despite diffraction and group-velocity dispersion. We are working to generate three dimensional spatiotemporal pulse-train solitons where the train of pulses is self-trapped in space due to a slowly responding self-focusing nonlinearity and each pulse is self-localized in the propagating direction by fast nonlinearity [1]. In a preliminary experiment, we demonstrated self-spectral broadening of a pulse train spatial soliton [2]. Recently, we demonstrated experimentally spatially-bright temporally-dark three dimensional spatiotemporal pulse train solitons.