Mainz 2026 – scientific programme

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SYSL: Symposium Classical and Quantum Structured Light

SYSL 1: Classical and Quantum Structured Light

SYSL 1.2: Invited Talk

Monday, March 2, 2026, 17:30–18:00, P 1

Attosecond Structured Light Pulses with Topology and Polarization Textures — •Carlos Hernandez-Garcia — Grupo de Investigación en Aplicaciones del Láser y Fotónica, Departamento de Física Aplicada. Universidad de Salamanca — Unidad de Excelencia en Luz y Materia Estructuradas (LUMES). Universidad de Salamanca

We will review recent advances that have boosted the emerging area of spatio-temporal and polarization-structured light pulses at the attosecond timescale. We will discuss how to tailor the angular-momentum content of attosecond pulses, emphasizing how the topology of extreme-ultraviolet (EUV)/soft-x-ray wavefronts and polarization textures can be tailored at the ultrafast timescale. Since the first demonstrations of high harmonic generation driven by vortex beams, the use of driving fields with engineered orbital angular momentum has enabled control of the spatiotemporal properties of high harmonics, including the generation of attosecond vortices with controlled polarization, self-torqued high-harmonic waveforms, EUV vector beams and attosecond vortex pulse trains, and EUV spatiotemporal and spatiospectral optical vortices. We will present the latest results on generating attosecond spatiotemporal optical-vortex pulses and on generalized attosecond polarization textures, including the first proposal to create attosecond pulse skyrmions.

Keywords: attosecond science; structured light; high harmonic generation; ultrafast science; nonlinear optics