Three-dimensional abruptly autofocusing by counter-propagating airy pulses with a radial airy beam profile

We report the experimental observation of a three-dimensional abruptly autofocusing effect by synthesizing a radially distributed Airy beam with two counter-propagating Airy pulses in time.As the wave packet propagates in a dispersive medium, the radially distributed Airy beam converges inward to the center point.Two Airy pulses counter-propagate toward each other to merge to form a high-peak-power pulse.As a result, high intensity emerges abruptly as the wave packet achieves three-dimensional focusing.This autofocusing effect is believed to have potential applications such as material modification, plasma physics, and nanoparticle manipulations.