Science Bulletin xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Science Bulletin
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Article

Non-spreading Bessel spatiotemporal optical vortices

Qian Cao a, Jian Chen a, Keyin Lu a, Chenhao Wan a,b, Andy Chong c,d, Qiwen Zhan a,⇑
a
School of Optical-Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
b
School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
c
Department of Physics, University of Dayton, Dayton OH 45469, USA
d
Department of Electro-Optics and Photonics, University of Dayton, Dayton OH 45469, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Non-spreading nature of Bessel spatiotemporal wavepackets is theoretically and experimentally
Received 18 May 2021 investigated and orders of magnitude improvement in the spatiotemporal spreading has been demon-
Received in revised form 6 July 2021 strated. The spatiotemporal confinement provided by the Bessel spatiotemporal wavepacket is further
Accepted 20 July 2021
exploited to transport transverse orbital angular momentum through embedding spatiotemporal optical
Available online xxxx
vortex into the Bessel spatiotemporal wavepacket, constructing a new type of wavepacket: Bessel spa-
tiotemporal optical vortex. Both numerical and experimental results demonstrate that spatiotemporal
Keywords:
vortex structure can be well maintained and confined through much longer propagation. High order spa-
Optical vortices
Bessel spatiotemporal wavepacket
tiotemporal optical vortices can also be better confined in the spatiotemporal domain and prevented
Orbital angular momentum from further breaking up, overcoming a potential major obstacle for future applications of spatiotemporal
Spatiotemporal vortex vortex.
Ó 2021 Science China Press. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science China Press. This is an open access
article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
Vortex is a natural phenomenon occurring at all physical mag-
nitudes spanning from spin of the galaxy to rotation of molecules,
or even a single photon. Photon can possess both spin angular
momentum (SAM) [1,2] and orbital angular momentum (OAM)
[3]. It was first discovered in 1992 that an optical vortex beam with
a helical phase-front, described as eilhx
y , carries a longitudinal OAM
of l⁄ per photon [4]. Since then, optical vortex beam [5], and more
generally, structured light [6–8], has become one of the most inter-
esting and enabling tools in research areas such as optical commu-
nications [9,10], photon manipulation [11], and quantum optics
[12].
In contrast to the intense research activities on optical vortex
beam carrying longitudinal OAM, the study on optical waveform
carrying transverse OAM significantly lags behind. Theoretical
work revealed that transverse OAM can be carried by spatiotempo-
ral optical vortices (STOV), an optical wavepacket with a complex,
spatiotemporal coupled field distribution [13,14]. STOV wave-
packet was first observed in the nonlinear collapse and self-
arrest of an extremely intense optical pulse in air [15]. Only very
recently, scientists have successfully generated a STOV wavepacket
using a linear optical setup based on a 2D, phase-only spatial light
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: qwzhan@usst.edu.cn (Q. Zhan).
modulator (SLM) [16]. The generated STOV wavepacket has a ring-
like field distribution with a spiral phase of eilhx
t in the x–t plane.
The simplicity and accessibility of this method open up new
research directions using STOV wavepackets [17,18].
However, one major issue for STOV wavepacket is the spa-
tiotemporal astigmatism between dispersion and diffraction.
Unlike optical vortex beam, whose diffractive phase is normally
balanced along the x- and the y-direction, STOV wavepacket
encounters an unbalanced dispersion and diffraction effect when
it free-propagates in the laboratory. As a result, the wavepacket
gradually losses the integrity for its spatiotemporal field and splits
into multiple separated lobes [19]. The separation of STOV charges
may severely hinder the use of STOV wavepacket in applications
where a tight confinement of STOV charges is preferred. On the
other hand, even if the STOV wavepacket has a balanced dispersion
and diffraction during propagation so that the field can maintain
its ring-like spatiotemporal field distribution, the wavepacket is
still spreading in both space and time due to dispersion and diffrac-
tion, resulting a reduced intensity.
This dilemma caused by the astigmatic nature between disper-
sion and diffraction leads to the following question: is it possible to
generate a non-spreading STOV wavepacket? To address this ques-
tion, we investigate a new class of non-spreading Bessel spatiotem-
poral optical vortices (BeSTOV) wavepackets. Sharing the same
concept as non-spreading spatial Bessel beams [20,21], BeSTOV
wavepackets have a higher-order Bessel function profile in

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2021.07.031
2095-9273/Ó 2021 Science China Press. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science China Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Please cite this article as: Q. Cao, J. Chen, K. Lu et al., Non-spreading Bessel spatiotemporal optical vortices, Science Bulletin, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
scib.2021.07.031
Q. Cao et al. Science Bulletin xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 1. SLM phase for generating BeSTWP and BeSTOV wavepacket. (a) Conical phase for generating BeSTWP. (b) Group delay dispersion (GDD) phase for adjusting the
dispersive phase of STWP. To generate BeSTWP, a positive GDD is mandatory. (c) Focus/Defocus phase for adjusting the accumulated diffractive phase. To generate BeSTWP, a
defocus phase needs to be properly engineered so that BeSTWP is formed at prescribed propagation distance after STWP synthesizer. (d) Helical phase for generating BeSTOV
wavepacket. A helical phase with a topological charge of +2 is plotted here. (e) BeSTWP phase. The phase is a combination of a conical phase, a positive GDD, and a defocus
phase. (f) BeSTOV phase. The phase is a combination of a conical phase, a helical phase of l=+2, a positive GDD, and a defocus phase.

spatiotemporal domain. In previous studies, fundamental Bessel has a spatiotemporal field defined by a 1-D Fourier transform
spatiotemporal wavepackets (BeSTWP) have been both theoreti- between frequency and time,
cally and experimentally demonstrated by several research groups Z
[22–26]. However, the experimental realizations in these works Eðx; tÞ ¼ Eðx; xÞ  e
ixt dx: ð1Þ
either compromise the flexibility and the efficiency of the system
due to the use of a fixed optical element [23], or they lack the capa- Here, the generated STWP is characterized in x–t plane and we
bility for generating STWPs carrying transverse OAM [25]. In this assume the wavepacket is uniformly distributed along y-direction.
paper, we generate BeSTWP and BeSTOV wavepacket using a STWP With this assumption, the evolution of STWP under dispersive
synthesizer setup enabled by a 2D SLM [16]. We theoretically propagation can be solved by the following equation,
demonstrate the generation and propagation-invariant property
of BeSTOV wavepackets and we generate BeSTOV wavepackets @Eðx; z; TÞ j @ 2 Eðx; z; TÞ j @ 2 Eðx; z; TÞ
¼
 þ b2  ; ð2Þ
using a STWP synthesizer setup and a 3D STWP measurement sys- @z 2b0 @x 2 2 @T 2
tem. BeSTOV wavepackets may open up new avenues for trans-
where a moving time coordinate T ¼ t
vzg is introduced to charac-
verse OAM related applications, for example, quantum optics,
optical communications, and novel spectroscopic techniques. terize the wavepacket in a localized time frame; v g is the group
velocity of the wavepacket; b0 is the propagation wave vector and
b2 is the group velocity dispersion (GVD) coefficient of the disper-
2. Analytical sive medium. If b2 is negative in Eq. (2), a well-known solution is
the Bessel function [22],
STWP with a spatiotemporal coupled field distribution can be 0 sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi1
generated by utilizing a STWP synthesizer setup to simultaneously pffiffiffi T 2 A jmhx
T
jx0 ðt
z=v p Þ
Em ðx; z; tÞ ¼ Am  J m @ a x2
e e ð3Þ
modulate the spatial phase and the spectral phase of a wavepacket b0 b2
[16]. A typical STWP synthesizer constitutes a diffraction grating, a
cylindrical lens, and a 2D SLM. Each of these components is sepa- where Am is the amplitude of the light field, J m the Bessel function of
rated by the focal length of the cylindrical lens in the setup. Using first kind with an order of m, a the normalization factor, ejmhx
T the
this 4-f configuration, the spatial-spectral (x–x) profile of the input  

jx0 t
vz
wavepacket is projected to the SLM plane and its spatial-spectral spiral phase in x–T plane, and e p
the oscillating term. Eq. (3)
phase is modulated. The modulated light field can be expressed indicates that the BeSTWP (m = 0) and BeSTOV wavepackets (m – 0)
as Eðx; xÞ ¼ E0 ðx; xÞei/SLM ðx;xÞ , where E0 ðx; xÞ is the input light field is invariant against dispersive propagation.
and /SLM ðx; xÞ is the applied SLM phase. The modulated wave- Just like the Bessel beam solution, the expression shown in Eq.
packet is reflected back to the same optical path and it is reconsti- (3) is an ideal solution that can only be approximated in practice.
tuted after the diffraction grating. The reconstituted wavepacket For the Bessel beam, the transverse Bessel profile is generated
2
Q. Cao et al. Science Bulletin xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 2. Numerical simulation of Bessel STWP and its propagation dynamics. (a) spatiotemporal intensity of Bessel STWP. The wavepacket is generated by a STWP synthesizer
seeded with a 200-fs, 2-mm, Gaussian-Gaussian wavepacket centered at 1.03 lm. BeSTWP is formed at 395 mm after STWP synthesizer. (b) spatiotemporal phase of BeSTWP.
(c)–(e) Propagation of BeSTWP in an anomalous dispersive (b2 =
2500 fs2 mm
1) medium after L = 395 mm. BeSTWP maintains its spatiotemporal profile along dispersive
propagation. The propagation distance (180 mm) corresponds to 15 diffraction length and 8 dispersion length. (f)–(h) Propagation of Gaussian-Gaussian wavepacket in the
same dispersive medium.

when a Gaussian beam passes an optical axicon and propagates
certain distance afterwards [16]. During free-space propagation,
the beam accumulates equal amount of diffractive phase along
x- and y-direction. In analogous to the optical axicon used for
Bessel beam generation, a spatial-spectral conical phase (Fig. 1a)
can be applied to the STWP synthesizer to form the BeSTWP.
The conical phase can be written as /ðx; xÞ ¼
ka  qx
X ¼
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

ka  ðx=wb Þ2 þc2x
X ðX=wX Þ2 ¼
C a x2 w2X þ c2x
X X2 w2b , where
C a ¼ ka =ðwb  wX Þ is the spatial-spectral axicon coefficient with
an unit of (s m
1), X ¼ x
x0 , wX =wb are the spectral/spatial
width of the input light field, and cx
X is a scaling factor that is
introduced as additional degree of freedom for controlling the
balance between diffractive phase and dispersion phase. Compar-
ing this STWP with the traditional Bessel beam, the y-coordinate
is replaced by time t. Therefore, if the wavepacket undergoes non-
dispersive, free-space propagation after the STWP synthesizer, it
accumulates an unbalanced amount of diffractive phase along
the x-direction and dispersive phase in the t-direction. At a dis-
tance of z ¼ L, the wavepacket evolves into

3
Q. Cao et al. Science Bulletin xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 3. Numerical simulation for Bessel STOV wavepacket and its propagation dynamics. (a) spatiotemporal intensity of BeSTOV wavepacket with a STOV charge of l=+1. (b)
spatiotemporal phase of BeSTOV wavepacket. Each ring has a screw phase of 2p and each neighbouring ring has a p-phase difference. (c)–(f) Propagation of BeSTOV in an
anomalous dispersive (b2 =
2500 fs2 mm
1) medium. Along dispersive propagation, STOV is always confined in the central ring of the wavepacket with minimal spread in
spatiotemporal domain. (g)–(j) Propagation of a STOV wavepacket in the same anomalous dispersive medium. The wavepacket has a significant amount of spread in
spatiotemporal domain.

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ffi ZZ
Z 2 2 x2
eik0 L þðx
xÞ Eðx; t; LÞ ¼ k0 eik0 ðLþ2L Þ E0 ðx0 ; XÞ
Eðx; t; LÞ ¼ Eðx; t; 0Þ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi dx
L2 þ ðx
xÞ2 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 2

iC x02 w2X þc20 X2 w2b iGDDX2 i2kL kx0
iXt
ikx0 x
Z e a x
X e e 0 e e dXdkx0 ð6Þ
1 x2 x2 xx
ffi eik0 ðLþ2L Þ Eðx; t Þz¼0 eik0 2L e
ik0 L dx ð4Þ
L Eq. (6) has the exact same mathematical form as Fresnel diffrac-
tion of a transverse beam. Thus, to generate BeSTWP, the dispersive
where x0 is the spatial coordinate at z ¼ 0. The integral describes the 2 i L k2
Fresnel diffraction of the wavepacket along the x-direction after it phase eiGDDX and the diffraction phase e 2k0 x0 needs to have the
leaves STWP synthesizer. Assuming the wavepacket has a disper- same phase ‘‘curvature”. Considering the normalization and scaling
sive phase of /ðXÞ ¼ i  GDD  X2 , the wavepacket at z ¼ L becomes factors, we reach the following relationship,
ZZ  2
1 ik0 ðLþx2 Þ L k0
Eðx; t; LÞ ¼ e 2L E0 ðx0 ; XÞ GDD  w2X ¼   c2x
X  w2b ;
L 2k0 L
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

iC x02 w2X þc20 X2 w2 iGDDX2 ik0 x2
iXt
ik0 xx0 0
e a L dXdx : ð5Þ k0 c2x
X  w2b
x
X be e 2L e e
GDD ¼  ð7Þ
0 2L w2X
Let kx0 ¼ k0Lx , Eq. (5) becomes

4
Q. Cao et al.
Fig. 4. STWP synthesizer and characterization system. Experimental setup for STWP generation and characterization. The setup is a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with two
arms. The right arm is a STWP synthesizer for generating the object STWP. The left arm is an optical delay line control the probe wavepacket. The object and probe
wavepackets overlap in both space and time at the CCD with a small incident angle offset of h. By scanning their relative time delay, 3D intensity and phase profile of the
object wavepacket can be retrieved through analyzing the captured CCD images using the algorithm in Ref. [27].
The expression reveals that a positive GDD is mandatory for
generating a BeSTWP. Positive GDD can be either from pre-
existing chirp from the initial wavepacket or it can be imposed
02
by SLM. Besides, if an extra focus/defocus phase of /ðxÞ ¼
ik02fx
is added to the SLM, the relationship between L and GDD
becomes
1
L¼ 2GDDw2X
: ð8Þ
k0 c2x
X w2b
þ 1f
Fig. 2 shows the numerical simulation results for BeSTWP gen-
erated by the STWP synthesizer. A Gaussian-Gaussian wavepacket
is modulated by a BeSTWP phase shown in Fig. 1e. The phase is a
combination of a conical coefficient C a of +6 fs lm
1, c2x
X of
0.53, a positive GDD of +740,000 fs2, and a defocus phase with
f =
3000 mm. The input wavepacket has a pulse duration of
200 fs (1/e spectral width of 10 THz), a beam size of 2 mm (1/e
radius), and a center wavelength at 1.03 lm. According to Eq.
(8), a spatiotemporal Bessel field distribution is generated at
395 mm after the STWP synthesizer. Fig. 2a plots the spatiotempo-
ral intensity profile of BeSTWP at L = 395 mm. As shown, the spa-
tiotemporal intensity has a fundamental Bessel function
distribution. The center lobe has a pulse duration of 400 fs, a spa-
tial beam size of 80 lm, and carries about 6.6% of the total wave-
packet energy. Fig. 2b plots the spatiotemporal phase of BeSTWP,
showing that each neighboring ring has a phase difference of p,
which is also a signature feature of a Bessel function.
To study the propagation dynamics of BeSTWP, we numerically
propagate the wavepacket at L = 395 mm (defined as z = 0 mm) in
an anomalous dispersive medium with a GVD coefficient b2
of
2,500 fs2 mm
1. Fig. 2c–e plots the spatiotemporal intensity
profile of BeSTWP after it propagates 0, 90, and 180 mm in the
medium. As shown, BeSTWP maintains its spatiotemporal profile
even after 15  diffraction length and 8  dispersion length. In
comparison, we filter out the center lobe of BeSTWP and propagate
it in the same dispersive medium. The results are plotted in Fig. 2f–
h. After propagating 180 mm, the filtered wavepacket has a pulse
duration of 4.7 ps (12  more) and a beam size of 1.5 mm
(19  more).
5
Science Bulletin xxx (xxxx) xxx
The comparison clearly demonstrates the dispersion/
diffraction-free property of BeSTWP. It is noteworthy that such
propagation invariability is only valid when Eq. (8) is closely
matched. Although not shown in Fig. 2, it should be noted that a
practical BeSTWP can only propagate free of dispersion/diffraction
for a finite distance, similar to the case of a truncated Bessel beam
[21]. Further propagating BeSTWP will cause abrupt collapse of the
wavepacket and generate a ring-like field in spatiotemporal
domain. Nevertheless, the propagation-invariant distance is still
considerably longer compared with the dispersion/diffraction
length of a Gaussian-Gaussian wavepacket.
STWP synthesizer can load an additional spatial-spectral helical
phase (Fig. 1d) to generate BeSTOV wavepacket. Fig. 3 shows the
generation of BeSTOV wavepacket with a STOV charge of l = +1
at L = 395 mm after STWP synthesizer. As shown in Fig. 3a, the spa-
tiotemporal intensity profile has a higher-order Bessel function
distribution with a multiple-ring structure. All rings have a uni-
formly distributed intensity pattern with high integrity. The cen-
tral ring of the wavepacket has a peak-to-peak spread of 140 lm
in the X-direction and 640 fs in time with 10% of the total wave-
packet energy. Fig. 3b plots the spatiotemporal phase of BeSTOV
wavepacket, showing that each ring has an azimuthally increasing
screw phase of 2p. Neighboring rings have a phase difference of p.
Similarly, we propagate the BeSTOV wavepacket at L = 395 mm
(z = 0 mm) in an anomalous dispersive medium with b2 =

2500 fs2 mm
1. The evolution of the wavepacket is shown in
Fig. 3c–f. During dispersive propagation, the STOV charge is always
confined within the central ring with negligible spread in space
and time. At 180 mm, due to the unbalance diffractive and disper-
sive phase, the central ring starts to loss intensity integrity and
evolves into a diagonal shape. In comparison, we filter out the cen-
tral ring from the BeSTOV wavepacket and let it propagate in the
same dispersive medium. The evolution of this filtered STOV wave-
packet is shown in Fig. 3g–j. Along propagation, the ring broadens
in all directions in spatiotemporal domain. After a 180 mm propa-
gation, the ring has a temporal spread of 4 ps (7 more) and a spa-
tial spread of 1.2 mm (8.5 more).
The above theoretical analysis reveals two advantages of
BeSTOV wavepacket over conventional STOV wavepacket: (1) a
Q. Cao et al.
Fig. 5. Generation of BeSTOV wavepacket. (a) 3D intensity isosurface of BeSTOV wavepacket. (b) spatiotemporal intensity profile of BeSTOV wavepacket. (c1), (c2) Intensity at
X = 0 (dotted line in Fig. 4b) and T = 0 (dashed line in Fig. 4b). (d) spatiotemporal intensity of BeSTOV wavepacket with a STOV charge l of ±1, ±2, and ± 3. (e) spatiotemporal
phase of the central ring (white dashed line box in Fig. 4d) of the generated BeSTOV wavepackets.
central donut ring containing STOV charges is very well main-
tained in the spatiotemporal domain. This is very helpful for appli-
cations where a tight confinement of STOV charges is needed, for
example, optical communication and photon manipulation; (2)
BeSTOV wavepacket is insensitive against dispersive propagation.
If the wavepacket is properly engineered, BeSTOV wavepacket
can propagate in an anomalous dispersive medium without chang-
ing its profile. To the contrary, a conventional STOV wavepacket
spreads in both space and time within the spatiotemporal domain,
which significantly reduces the intensity of the wavepacket, and
even worse, breaks up into elemental vortices and splits in space
and time.
3. Experimental
BeSTWP and BeSTOV are experimentally generated using a
STWP synthesizer. A 3D wavepacket measurement system based
on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer is built to characterize the gen-
erated STWP [27]. The schematic for the experiment setup is illus-
trated in Fig. 4. A home-built, mode-locked fiber laser serves as the
master laser to seed the system. The laser output is split into two
replicas. One replica goes into a STWP synthesizer (right dashed
line box in Fig. 4) and is modulated to form the ‘‘object” STWP. A
programmable 2D SLM (Holoeye GAEA-2) placed in the 4-f STWP
6
Science Bulletin xxx (xxxx) xxx
synthesizer setup modulates the spatial-spectral phase of the input
wavepacket. Compared with previous works on generating
BeSTWP [23], this configuration is more versatile, straightforward,
and power-efficient.
In the other arm of the interferometer (left dashed line box in
Fig. 4), the laser goes through a time delay and becomes the
‘‘probe” wavepacket for measuring the ‘‘object” wavepacket. By
scanning the relative time delay s between ‘‘object” and ‘‘probe”,
the information of ‘‘object” wavepacket at the time frame where
‘‘object” and ‘‘probe” are overlapping is registered to the captured
fringe pattern. After analyzing CCD images, 3D intensity and phase
profiles of the ‘‘object” wavepacket can be retrieved [27].
Using the STWP synthesizer setup and a 3D STWP measurement
system, we first generate and characterize a BeSTOV wavepacket
with a topological charge l = +1. Fig. 5a plots the normalized 3D
intensity isosurface I(X, Y, T) of the generated wavepacket. The
result shows the spatiotemporal intensity has a higher-order Bes-
sel function distribution in the X–T plane. Fig. 5b plots the spa-
tiotemporal intensity profile of the wavepacket. Fig. 5c plots the
intensity profile along X = 0 and T = 0. The central ring of the gen-
erated BeSTOV wavepacket has a peak-to-peak spread of 210 fs in
time and 600 lm in the X-direction. The generation of BeSTOV is
confirmed.
We then change the topological charge l from
3 to + 3. Fig. 5d
plots the spatiotemporal intensity profile of the measured
Q. Cao et al.
Fig. 6. Propagation dynamics of BeSTOV wavepacket. BeSTOV wavepacket (l=+2) is propagated in a ‘‘virtual” dispersive medium by altering the GDD and defocus phase on
SLM placed in STWP synthesizer. An additional positive GDD is added. Along dispersive propagation, STOV charges are always confined within the central of the wavepacket
in a separation of <200 fs in time.
wavepackets. All wavepackets have at least 4 rings in the spa-
tiotemporal domain. As expected, the generated STOV charges
are always confined within the central ring of the wavepacket. It
can be also noticed that the peak-to-peak width of the central ring
increases with an increased topological charge number |l|, which is
similar to the case of higher-order vortex beams. Fig. 5e plots the
spatiotemporal phase profile of the measured BeSTOV wavepack-
ets. The result confirms the tight confinement of multiple STOV
charges within the central ring of the wavepacket. For example,
for a BeSTOV wavepacket with l =
3 (leftmost graphs in Fig. 5d
and e), the central ring has a peak-to-peak time width of 450 fs.
STOV charges are separated within 200 fs in time.
Finally, we propagate a BeSTOV wavepacket with a STOV charge
of l = +2 in a ‘‘virtual” dispersive medium. The dispersion effect is
introduced by changing the GDD phase on the SLM. Meanwhile,
we adjust the defocus phase so that the overall effect emulates a
situation where a ‘‘virtual” dispersive medium is placed in front
of the CCD. As shown in Fig. 6, the wavepacket maintains it spa-
tiotemporal profile, especially its central ring, even when the
induced GDD increases to 39,000 fs2, corresponding to 186 mm
off the optimal position (Fig. 6a). More importantly, STOV charges
are always confined in the central ring during dispersive propaga-
tion. In Fig. 6d, two STOV charges are separated by <200 fs in time
with negligible separation in the X-direction. For a conventional
STOV wavepacket, the introduction of dispersion and diffraction
will lead to the split of STOV charges, largely in the time domain,
which would hamper the use of STOV wavepacket in applications
such as quantum telecommunication and photon manipulation.
4. Discussion and conclusion
In conclusions, we theoretically and numerically investigated
BeSTWP and proved its non-spreading nature. Orders of magnitude
improvement in the spatiotemporal confinement can be obtained.
This unique property is further exploited to transport transverse
OAM through embedding STOV into the Bessel spatiotemporal
wavepacket, constructing BeSTOV as a new type of wavepacket.
Both numerical and experimental results demonstrate that spa-
tiotemporal vortex structure can be well maintained and confined
through much longer propagation. High order STOV are also better
confined in the spatiotemporal domain and prevented from break-
ing up into multiple elemental vortices.
In the past two decades or so, there have been tremendously
increasing interests in the research and applications of spatial
phase singularity such as OAM beams. The discovery of spatiotem-
poral vortex and its controllable experimental creation and charac-
terization, however, are very recent. As phase singularities, there
are lots of similarities between spatial OAM and STOV. However,
7
Science Bulletin xxx (xxxx) xxx
there are also distinctive differences arising from the unique spa-
tiotemporal coupling. Particularly, the spatiotemporal shape of
STOV gets distorted and eventually collapses through propagation
due to the unbalance between diffraction and dispersion. This
potentially could be an obstacle for some applications or for the
studies of interactions between STOV and matters. Using the
BeSTWP as a carrier, STOV can be embedded within BeSTOV and
maintains its spatiotemporal integrity for much longer propaga-
tion distances, removing a potential major obstacle for future
applications of STOV.
The same STWP synthesizer constitutes a diffraction grating, a
cylindrical lens, and a 2D SLM used to create STOV [16] is
employed to generate the spatiotemporal wavepackets in this
work. The simplicity and power of this setup is again clearly
demonstrated. It opens the door for new spatiotemporal manipula-
tions and operations through exploration of the diffraction and dis-
persion with carefully designed modulation pattern on the SLM.
The capability of engineering diffraction and dispersion of spa-
tiotemporal wavepackets offers a whole new venue for the studies
of light matter interactions that will lead to new phenomena and
applications with much more to be explored.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (92050202, 61805142, and 61875245), Shanghai
Science and Technology Committee (19060502500), and Shanghai
Natural Science Foundation (20ZR1437600).
Author contributions
Qian Cao and Qiwen Zhan proposed the original idea and per-
formed the theoretical analysis. Qian Cao performed all experi-
ments and numerical analysis. Keyin Lu, Jian Chen, Chenhao
Wan, and Andy Chong contributed in developing the measurement
method. Andy Chong helped the theoretical and experimental
analysis. Qiwen Zhan supervised the project. Qian Cao, Qiwen
Zhan, and Andy Chong wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed
the manuscript.
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Q. Cao et al. Science Bulletin xxx (xxxx) xxx

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