2019, Karpińska, Katarzyna, Bodenschatz, Jonathan F.E., Malinowski, Szymon P., Nowak, Jakub L., Risius, Steffen, Schmeissner, Tina, Shaw, Raymond A., Siebert, Holger, Xi, Hengdong, Xu, Haitao, Bodenschatz, Eberhard

The phenomenon of "cloud voids", i.e., elongated volumes inside a cloud that are devoid of droplets, was observed with laser sheet photography in clouds at a mountain-top station. Two experimental cases, similar in turbulence conditions yet with diverse droplet size distributions and cloud void prevalence, are reported. A theoretical explanation is proposed based on the study of heavy inertial sedimenting particles inside a Burgers vortex. A general conclusion regarding void appearance is drawn from theoretical analysis. Numerical simulations of polydisperse droplet motion with realistic vortex parameters and Mie scattering visual effects accounted for can explain the presence of voids with sizes similar to that of the observed ones. Clustering and segregation effects in a vortex tube are discussed for reasonable cloud conditions. © Author(s) 2019.

2014, Grunwald, R., Elsaesser, T., Bock, M.

Light carrying an orbital angular momentum (OAM) displays an optical phase front rotating in space and time and a vanishing intensity, a so-called vortex, in the center. Beyond continuous-wave vortex beams, optical pulses with a finite OAM are important for many areas of science and technology, ranging from the selective manipulation and excitation of matter to telecommunications. Generation of vortex pulses with a duration of few optical cycles requires new methods for characterising their coherence properties in space and time. Here we report a novel approach for flexibly shaping and characterising few-cycle vortex pulses of tunable topological charge with two sequentially arranged spatial light modulators. The reconfigurable optical arrangement combines interferometry, wavefront sensing, time-of-flight and nonlinear correlation techniques in a very compact setup, providing complete spatiooral coherence maps at minimum pulse distortions. Sub-7â €...fs pulses carrying different optical angular momenta are generated in single and multichannel geometries and characterised in comparison to zero-order Laguerre-Gaussian beams. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the shortest pulse durations reported for direct vortex shaping and detection with spatial light modulators. This access to space-time coupling effects with sub-femtosecond time resolution opens new prospects for tailored twisted light transients of extremely short duration.