Half-cycle electromagnetic pulses and pulse electric area

Abstract

Recent progress in the generation of attosecond optical pulses raises the question of the limits of pulse duration reduction. Such pulses are needed to penetrate and control the world of intra-atomic and potentially intra-nuclear processes, radically increase the productivity of information transmission and processing and for other applications. The pulse duration is inversely proportional to the width of the pulse spectrum. When the possibilities for the width expansion are exhausted, the duration can be reduced by reducing the number of field cycles in the pulse. Extremely short pulses are half-cycle and unipolar. They have a more effective, unidirectional effect on electrical charges of the same sign. Experiments show the half-cycle pulses in the terahertz region of the spectrum; ways to obtain them in the optical region are discussed. The unusual properties of half-cycle pulses require the use of strict Maxwell equations.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Few- and half-cycle electromagnetic pulses
• Maxwell’s equations
• pulse electric area
• pulses’ interaction with micro-objects

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation [grant number 23-12-00012].

Notes on contributors

N. N. Rosanov

N. N. Rosanov began to work at the State Optical Institute, Saint-Petersburg, Russia in 1963. Here he received the degrees of candidate (1970) and doctor (1983) of physical and mathematical sciences, professor (1991), and finally became the head of the laboratory of laser theory. In 2019, he moved to the Ioffe Institute, where he works as chief scientist, head of a group of nonlinear optics. N.N. Rosanov was elected corresponding member (2011) and academician (2022) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His interests extend to physical and nonlinear optics, laser physics, dissipative optical solitons and extremely short and unipolar optical pulses.

M. V. Arkhipov

M. V. Arkhipov, Master's degree in physics, Leningrad State University (former USSR), 1982. PhD in Optical Sciences, St. Petersburg State University, Russia, 1994. Since 1982 he has been a researcher, senior researcher and laboratory head at the Faculty of Physics, St. Petersburg State University. Since 2013, his research interests have shifted to the optics of ultrafast processes. In 2022 he moved to the Ioffe Institute, where he works as a senior scientist.

R. M. Arkhipov

Rostislav Arkhipov received his master's degree in physics from the Faculty of Physics, St. Petersburg State University (SPbSU) in 2010. In 2015, he received his PhD in Theoretical Physics and Optics from the Humboldt University and the Weierstrass Institute, Berlin. He was awarded a Herbert Walther Fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen, Germany, after defending his thesis. He also held assistant and senior lecturer positions at the Physics Faculty, SPbSU. He currently holds the position of leading researcher and heads the Ultrafast Optics Research Group at the Faculty of Physics, SPbSU.

A. V. Pakhomov

Anton Pakhomov received his PhD degree in physics at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena, Germany in 2021. He currently works as postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Physics, St. Petersburg State University, Russia.