Tight focusing induces pulse delay and pulse compression of double-ring-shaped radially polarized ultrashort light pulses

Abstract

The focusing of double-ring-shaped radially polarized ultrashort light pulses by a high-numerical aperture objective is investigated using vectorial Debye theory. After focusing, the double-ring-shaped radially polarized ultrashort light pulses slow down near the focus, and this pulse delay induces pulse compression in the propagation direction. That is, without changing the pulse duration, the spatial pulse length of the ultrashort light pulse is decreased near the focus. The velocity of the longitudinal component of the light pulse near the focus is lower than that of the radial component. The simulation results demonstrate that control of the ratio of the pupil radius to the beam radius affects not only the longitudinal component of the light pulse, but also the velocity and spatial pulse length of the light pulse because of the destructive interference between the longitudinal components of the inner and outer rings of the light pulse.