Abstract
We calculate the electric field of few-optical-cycle pulses at the focus of a perfectly conducting mirror by adding coherently the Airy diffraction patterns for each pulse frequency. We will show that the pulse suffers temporal spreading generated by a change in the spectrum of the pulse as a function of position in the focal plane, which introduces spatial chirp to the pulse. A double pulse appears near to the diffraction minima of the carrier frequency due to the variations in the spectra.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge sponsorship of this work to Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (DGAPA-UNAM, PAPIIT-IN104112 and PAPIIT-IB101212) and Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) CB2009 No. 131746.