Differentiator

Computational physics

Detector

Engineering

Envelope (radar)

Telecommunications

Physics

Optical vortex

Structural engineering

Mechanics

Optics

Quantum electrodynamics

Vortex

Pulse (music)

Computer science

Transverse plane

Bandwidth (computing)

Classical mechanics

Angular momentum

Radar

Laser & Photonics Review

As a new degree of freedom for optical manipulation, recently spatiotemporal optical vortices (STOVs) carrying transverse orbital angular momentums have been experimentally demonstrated with pulse shapers. Here a spatiotemporal differentiator is proposed to generate STOVs with transverse orbital angular momentum. In order to create phase singularity in the spatiotemporal domain, the spatiotemporal differentiator is designed by breaking spatial mirror symmetry. In contrast to pulse shapers, the device proposed here is a simple one-dimensional periodic nanostructure and thus it is much more compact. For a normal incident pulse, the differentiator generates a transmitted STOV pulse with transverse orbital angular momentum. Furthermore, the interference of the generated STOVs can be used to detect the sharp changes of pulse envelopes, in both spatial and temporal dimensions.

Spatiotemporal Differentiators Generating Optical Vortices with Transverse Orbital Angular Momentum and Detecting Sharp Change of Pulse Envelope