Research

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Beam Shaping & Spatial Effects

Non-diffractive & accelerating beams

We study singular beams, from their fundamental properties to their experimental generation and optimization, including for practical applications:

  • Generation and energy optimization of 2D nondiffractive (Bessel) and accelerating (e.g. Airy) beams

  • Applications to ultrafast laser material processing (e.g. graphene micro/nano-structuring with vortex beams)

  • Extension to 3+1D systems with spatio-temporal optical bullets

Optimized 3D Airy optical bullet (reduced spatio-temporal footprint obtained via spectral shaping)

Riemann beam steepening, observed experimentally within a nonlinear solution of m-cresol and nylon.

Nonlinear spatial effects

We work on the impact of spatial nonlinear effects on advanced beam propagation dynamics, and their temporal NLSE (pulses) counterparts:

  • Nonlinear stability of nondiffractive/accelerating beams

  • Study of time-space duality in the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE)

  • Hydrodynamics analogies: Burgers' equations, shallow water wave approximation, etc.

  • Nonlocal & spatial nonlinear effects (in e.g. thermal & photorefractive media)

  • Spatio-temporal effects in multimode fibers (MMF)

Applications in biological systems

Theoretical advances and insight in nonlinear spatial dynamics form the basis of widespread applications in biological systems:

  • Nonlinear & nonlocal dynamics induced by optical forces in suspensions & biological media

  • Beam self-guiding in biological systems: Deep-penetration with reduced scattering effects and qualitative impact of the biological content on beam propagation

  • Applications to optimized bioimaging systems and architectures, etc.

Red blood cells optical trapping & beam self-guiding (left). Beam output profiles (right) in a linear (top) and nonlinear (bottom) regime.

Selected publications:

Selected highlights & monographs:

  • R. Gautam, Y. Xiang, J. Lamstein, Y. Liang, A. Bezryadina, G. Liang, T. Hansson, B. Wetzel, D. Preece, A. White, M. Silverman, S. Kazarian, J. Xu, R. Morandotti, Z. Chen, Light-guiding in red blood cell suspensions, Optics & Photonics News Special Issue: Optics in 2019, Vol. 30, Issue 12, pp. 37 (2019)

  • A. Bezryadina, T. Hansson, R. Gautam, B. Wetzel, G. Siggins, A. Kalmbach, J. Lamstein, D. Gallardo, E.J. Carpenter, A. Ichimura, R. Morandotti, Z. Chen, Bacterial waveguides of light, Optics & Photonics News Special Issue: Optics in 2017, Vol. 28, Issue 12, pp. 41 (2017)