Three-dimensional exploding light wave packets

Resumen

We describe a family of paraxial and quasi-monochromatic optical wave packets with finite energy and smoothly shaped amplitude in space and time that develops a singularity in the intensity when spatio-temporally focused by imparting a converging spherical wavefront and a negative temporal chirp. This singular behavior upon ideal focusing is manifested in actual focusing with finite apertures and in media with high-order dispersion with exploding behavior featuring an indefinitely increasing concentration of the energy when opening the aperture radius, thus exercising continuous control on the focal intensity and spatial and temporal resolution. These wave packets offer a new way of focusing that outperforms what can be achieved with standard Gaussian wave packets in terms of focal intensity and resolution, providing new possibilities in applications where energy concentration and its control are crucial.