IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v16y2025i1d10.1038_s41467-025-56982-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Space-time wave packets in multimode optical fibers with controlled dynamic motions and tunable group velocities

Author

Listed:
  • Xinzhou Su

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Kaiheng Zou

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Yingning Wang

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Murat Yessenov

    (University of Central Florida)

  • Huibin Zhou

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Hao Song

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Wing Ko

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Ruoyu Zeng

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Abdulrahman Alhaddad

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Murale Ramakrishnan

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Yuxiang Duan

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Ayman F. Abouraddy

    (University of Central Florida)

  • Moshe Tur

    (Tel Aviv University)

  • Demetrios N. Christodoulides

    (Univ. of Southern California)

  • Alan E. Willner

    (Univ. of Southern California)

Abstract

Space-time wave packets (STWPs) with correlated spatial and frequency degrees of freedom exhibit time-dependent spatial interference, thereby giving rise to interesting dynamic evolution behaviors. While versatile spatiotemporal phenomena have been demonstrated in freely propagating fields, coupling spatiotemporal light into multimode fibers remains a fundamental experimental challenge. Whereas synthesizing freely propagating STWPs typically relies on a continuum of plane-wave modes, their multimode-fiber counterparts must be constructed from the discrete set of fiber modes whose propagation constants depend on fiber structures. Here, we demonstrate STWPs with axially controllable motion of the transverse profile and reconfigurable group velocity in graded-index multimode fibers. This is accomplished by introducing a linear association between frequency comb lines and corresponding fiber modes. The synthesized STWPs present dynamic rotation and translation with a 4.8-ps period. Simultaneously, the group velocity can be tuned from positive subluminal and superluminal to negative values (e.g., 0.870, 1.35, 10, and –3.3 × 108 m/s, respectively).

Suggested Citation

  • Xinzhou Su & Kaiheng Zou & Yingning Wang & Murat Yessenov & Huibin Zhou & Hao Song & Wing Ko & Ruoyu Zeng & Abdulrahman Alhaddad & Murale Ramakrishnan & Yuxiang Duan & Ayman F. Abouraddy & Moshe Tur &, 2025. "Space-time wave packets in multimode optical fibers with controlled dynamic motions and tunable group velocities," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-10, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56982-9
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56982-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56982-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-025-56982-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chenhao Li & Torsten Wieduwilt & Fedja J. Wendisch & Andrés Márquez & Leonardo de S. Menezes & Stefan A. Maier & Markus A. Schmidt & Haoran Ren, 2023. "Metafiber transforming arbitrarily structured light," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Murat Yessenov & Basanta Bhaduri & Peter J. Delfyett & Ayman F. Abouraddy, 2020. "Free-space optical delay line using space-time wave packets," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Qinggang Lin & Fu Feng & Yi Cai & Xiaowei Lu & Xuanke Zeng & Congying Wang & Shixiang Xu & Jingzhen Li & Xiaocong Yuan, 2024. "Direct space–time manipulation mechanism for spatio-temporal coupling of ultrafast light field," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7, December.
    4. Murat Yessenov & Justin Free & Zhaozhong Chen & Eric G. Johnson & Martin P. J. Lavery & Miguel A. Alonso & Ayman F. Abouraddy, 2022. "Space-time wave packets localized in all dimensions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    5. Zhe Zhao & Hao Song & Runzhou Zhang & Kai Pang & Cong Liu & Haoqian Song & Ahmed Almaiman & Karapet Manukyan & Huibin Zhou & Brittany Lynn & Robert W. Boyd & Moshe Tur & Alan E. Willner, 2020. "Dynamic spatiotemporal beams that combine two independent and controllable orbital-angular-momenta using multiple optical-frequency-comb lines," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qinggang Lin & Fu Feng & Yi Cai & Xiaowei Lu & Xuanke Zeng & Congying Wang & Shixiang Xu & Jingzhen Li & Xiaocong Yuan, 2024. "Direct space–time manipulation mechanism for spatio-temporal coupling of ultrafast light field," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7, December.
    2. Pengcheng Huo & Wei Chen & Zixuan Zhang & Yanzeng Zhang & Mingze Liu & Peicheng Lin & Hui Zhang & Zhaoxian Chen & Henri Lezec & Wenqi Zhu & Amit Agrawal & Chao Peng & Yanqing Lu & Ting Xu, 2024. "Observation of spatiotemporal optical vortices enabled by symmetry-breaking slanted nanograting," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-8, December.
    3. Xin Liu & Qian Cao & Nianjia Zhang & Andy Chong & Yangjian Cai & Qiwen Zhan, 2024. "Spatiotemporal optical vortices with controllable radial and azimuthal quantum numbers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Mohammadhossein Khosravi & Torsten Wieduwilt & Matthias Zeisberger & Adrian Lorenz & Markus A. Schmidt, 2025. "Advanced remote focus control in multicore meta-fibers through 3D nanoprinted phase-only holograms," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-10, December.
    5. Tiantian He & Yuan Meng & Lele Wang & Hongkun Zhong & Nilo Mata-Cervera & Dan Li & Ping Yan & Qiang Liu & Yijie Shen & Qirong Xiao, 2024. "Optical skyrmions from metafibers with subwavelength features," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    6. Murat Yessenov & Justin Free & Zhaozhong Chen & Eric G. Johnson & Martin P. J. Lavery & Miguel A. Alonso & Ayman F. Abouraddy, 2022. "Space-time wave packets localized in all dimensions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    7. Xiaoyan Zhou & Hongtao Wang & Shuxi Liu & Hao Wang & John You En Chan & Cheng-Feng Pan & Daomu Zhao & Joel K. W. Yang & Cheng-Wei Qiu, 2024. "Arbitrary engineering of spatial caustics with 3D-printed metasurfaces," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    8. Xiyuan Lu & Mingkang Wang & Feng Zhou & Mikkel Heuck & Wenqi Zhu & Vladimir A. Aksyuk & Dirk R. Englund & Kartik Srinivasan, 2023. "Highly-twisted states of light from a high quality factor photonic crystal ring," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56982-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.