Tornado waves
Apostolos Brimis, Konstantinos G. Makris, D. G. Papazoglou
Abstract
We show that light spiraling like a tornado can be generated by superimposing abruptly auto-focusing ring-Airy beams that carry orbital angular momentum of opposite handedness. With different parabolic propagation trajectories, the superimposing ring-Airy beams are tailored to abruptly auto-focus at overlapping focal regions. This results in a complex wave with intense lobes that twist and shrink in an accelerating fashion along propagation. By achieving angular acceleration values that exceed <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" id="m1"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>295</mml:mn> <mml:mtext> </mml:mtext> <mml:mtext> </mml:mtext> <mml:mi>rad</mml:mi> <mml:mo>/</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>mm</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> , these tornado waves can find numerous applications in laser trapping, direct laser writing, and high-harmonic generation.