Total internal reflection of the mid-IR near single-cycle light bullet in LiF

Opt Lett. 2021 Jul 1;46(13):3187-3190. doi: 10.1364/OL.430542.

Abstract

Mid-IR light bullets formation and self-reconstruction after total internal reflection in LiF is investigated experimentally and through numerical simulations. The experiment showed that spatial-temporal deformations of the wave packet in inhomogeneous wave on a reflecting interface can be neglected for this process and a near single-cycle light bullet can be formed or recovered after a distance determined by its energy loss for ionization and supercontinuum radiation. The estimation of the reconstruction distance by an empirical formula for self-focusing distance on the base of the peak power and the radius of the LB numerical simulation are in a good agreement with experimental data received.