Feature

The Temporal Talbot Effect

F. Mitschke and U. Morgner

There is a well-known analogy between spatial and temporal effects in optics. Self focussing is the spatial analogue to self phase-modulation: both are due to the Kerr non-linearity, but one acts in the plane transverse to the direction of propagation, the other in the longitudinal direction, or temporal domain. Similarly, group velocity dispersion is the temporal analogue of diffraction in space. It is therefore, perhaps, not so surprising that the analogy applies to a very peculiar case of diffraction.