Spatiotemporal optical vortex combs.

Single-packet spatiotemporal optical vortices (STOVs) with transverse orbital angular momentum (OAM) have recently garnered significant attentions. Nevertheless, more advanced applications require diverse transverse OAM modes and multiple STOV wave packets, forming what we term a STOV comb. Analogous to the frequency combs, the STOV comb is a sequence of STOV teeth with each tooth carrying the customized transverse OAM mode. In this work, method for generating the customizable STOV combs and application of STOV combs in information transmission are demonstrated. Theoretical modeling and experimental generation of STOV comb with multiple teeth and diverse topological charges (TCs) is carried out. The strategies for adjusting the TC difference and the spatiotemporal interval between the adjacent STOV teeth are demonstrated and the generation of irregular STOV combs is realized. Besides, the two-channel information encoding and transmission is realized with the dual-tooth STOV combs. Our work generates customizable STOV combs, paving the way for advanced applications of STOV fields.