Self-Compressed Pulse Trapping: Exploring Nonlinear Filamentation in Optical Tweezers for Sub-Femtosecond Control

Baudisch (2017) describes one of the first few-cycle, mid-IR pulse self-compression techniques via filamentation. This idea proposes adapting such self-compressed pulses as the foundation of a new class of optical tweezers. Here, the intense, spatially localized field from the filament would act as a dynamic, ultrafast trap, potentially enabling the study of nonlinear optical forces, plasma-mediated trapping, and even attosecond-scale dynamics within the trapped object. Unlike conventional tweezers, which operate in the linear or weakly nonlinear regime, this approach uses the unique spatiotemporal structure of filamentary pulses (including the possibility of CEP-stable fields) to achieve unprecedented control over trapped particles. No current literature explores the interplay between filamentation-based self-compression and optical manipulation, making this a genuinely novel direction that could reveal unknown behaviors in light-matter interaction and force generation at extreme intensities.

References:

1. High power, high intensity few-cycle pulses in the mid-IR for strong-field experiments. M. Baudisch (2017).