Generation Of Spatiotemporal Optical Vortices With Partial Temporal Coherence

Recently, a spatiotemporal optical vortex (STOV) with a transverse orbital angular momentum (OAM) has been generated from coherent ultrafast pulses using mode-locked lasers. In contrast, we demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that a STOV can be generated from a light source with partial temporal coherence with fluctuating temporal structures. By eliminating the need of mode-locked laser sources, the partially coherent STOV will serve as a convenient and cost-effective transverse OAM source. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement