Abstract

The self-imaging of periodic light patterns, also known as the Talbot effect, is usually limited to periods that are larger than the wavelength. Here we present, theoretically and experimentally, a method to overcome this limitation by using superoscillating light patterns. The input intensity distribution is a periodic band-limited function with relatively large periods, but it contains regions of multilobe periodic oscillations with periods that are smaller than half of the wavelength. We observe the revival of the input pattern, including the subwavelength superoscillating regions, at large distances of more than 40 times the optical wavelength. Moreover, at fractional Talbot distances, we observe even faster local oscillations, with periods of approximately one-third of the optical wavelength.

© 2020 Optical Society of America

Talbot effect in arrays of helical waveguides

Kaiyun Zhan, Lichao Dou, Ruiyun Jiao, Wenqian Zhang, and Bing Liu
Opt. Lett. 46(2) 322-325 (2021)

Spectral interpretation of Talbot self-healing effect and application to optical arbitrary waveform generation

Côme Schnébelin and Hugues Guillet de Chatellus
Opt. Lett. 43(7) 1467-1470 (2018)

Light beams with volume superoscillations

Thomas Zacharias and Alon Bahabad
Opt. Lett. 45(13) 3482-3485 (2020)

Temporal Talbot effect of optical dark pulse trains

Jiaye Wu, Jianqi Hu, and Camille-Sophie Brès
Opt. Lett. 47(4) 953-956 (2022)

Dynamic manipulation of nonlinear Talbot effect with structured light

Lin Li, Haigang Liu, and Xianfeng Chen
Opt. Lett. 46(6) 1281-1284 (2021)