Far-field spectral behaviour and spectral switching of super-Gaussian pulses

We have presented the far-field spectral behaviour of a super-Gaussian pulse diffracted through a rectangular aperture. It has been found that the on-axis modified power spectrum is always blue shifted, whose value increases with the increase in the value of the super-Gaussian parameter (m). For off-axis case, at some critical angle of diffraction, the diffraction induced far-field power spectrum is split into two lines of equal height. The far-field power spectrum is blue shifted when the diffraction angle is greater than the critical angle, whereas it is red shifted when the diffraction angle is less than the critical angle, i.e., spectral switching occurs. The critical angle for switching significantly increases with the increase in the super-Gaussian parameter (m). An important finding is that the switching frequency, the blue and red shift frequencies can be tuned by varying m.