Ultrashort highly localized wavepackets

The recently introduced concept of radially non-oscillating, temporally stable ultrashort-pulsed Bessel-like beams we referred to as needle beams is generalized to a particular class of highly localized wavepackets (HLWs). Spatio-temporally quasi-nondiffracting pulses propagating along extended zones are shaped from Ti:sapphire oscillator radiation with a spatial light modulator and characterized with spatially resolved second order autocorrelation. Few-cycle wavepackets tailored to resemble circular disks, rings and bars of light represent the closest approximation of linear-optical light bullets known so far. By combining multiple HLWs, complex pulsed nondiffracting patterns are obtained. (c) 2012 Optical Society of America