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Abstract

We present the measurements of the spatiotemporal impulse responses of two optical systems for launching ultrashort Airy pulses, including ultrabroadband nonspreading Airy beams whose main lobe size remains invariantly small over propagation. First, a spatial light modulator and, second, a custom refractive element with continuous surface profile were used to impose the required cubic phase on the input field. A white-light spectral interferometry setup based on the SEA TADPOLE technique was applied for full spatio-temporal characterization of the impulse response with ultrahigh temporal resolution approaching a single cycle of the light wave. The results were compared to the theoretical model.