Roadmap on spatiotemporal light fields

TLDR

Spatiotemporal sculpturing of light pulses aims to enable ultra‑fast information transmission, ultra‑intense energy concentration, and unlock new fundamental physical effects, moving beyond the traditional separable wave‑packet solutions of Maxwell’s equations to increasingly complex nonseparable states. This roadmap surveys recent advances in creating and controlling complex spatiotemporally sculptured pulses, from separable to nonseparable forms, and outlines future trends and open challenges. It reviews the techniques for generating and manipulating these pulses, highlighting their diverse geometric and topological structures.

Abstract

Abstract Spatiotemporal sculpturing of light pulse with ultimately sophisticated structures represents a major goal of the everlasting pursue of ultra-fast information transmission and processing as well as ultra-intense energy concentration and extraction. It also holds the key to unlock new extraordinary fundamental physical effects. Traditionally, spatiotemporal light pulses are always treated as spatiotemporally separable wave packet as solution of the Maxwell’s equations. In the past decade, however, more generalized forms of spatiotemporally nonseparable solution started to emerge with growing importance for their striking physical effects. This roadmap intends to highlight the recent advances in the creation and control of increasingly complex spatiotemporally sculptured pulses, from spatiotemporally separable to complex nonseparable states, with diverse geometric and topological structures, presenting a bird’s eye viewpoint on the zoology of spatiotemporal light fields and the outlook of future trends and open challenges.