Double-helix singularity and vortex–antivortex annihilation in space-time helical pulses

Topological structures reveal the hidden secrets and beauty in nature, such as the double helix in DNA, whilst, the manipulation of which in physical fields, especially in ultrafast structured light, draw booming attention. Here we introduce a new family of spatiotemporal light fields, i.e. helical pulses, carrying sophisticated double-helix singularities in its electromagnetic topological structures. The helical pulses were solved from Maxwell’s equation as chiral extensions of toroidal light pulses but with controlled angular momentum dependence. We unveil that the double helix singularities can maintain their topological invariance during propagation and the field exhibits paired generation and annihilation of vortices and antivortices in ultrafast space-time, so as to be potential information carriers beating previous conventional vortex structured light.