Self-Channeling of High Peak-Power Femtosecond Laser Pulses in Air

Braun, A.; Korn, G.; Liu, X.; Du, D.; Squier, Jeffrey A.; Mourou, G.

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-85176-6_86

Cited by 74 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…We considered input powers as high as 10P cr and close to peak powers currently attained in experiments. [4][5][6] For instance, while the temporal dependences of the wavefield were numerically disregarded in Ref. 6, comparable propagation distances comprised between 3 and 4 times the Rayleigh length were experimentally measured for pulses with durations of several hundred femtoseconds, subject to MPI and to an instantaneous Kerr response.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 These two phenomena also take place in the interaction of ultra-short pulses with many gases and air, in which high-power femtosecond lasers have experimentally been observed to propagate by self-channeling over distances beyond several hundred meters [4][5][6] and even cover more than 10 km across the atmosphere. 7 This spectacular propagation, which has numerically been studied by several authors, 5,6,[8][9][10][11][12] proceeds from the balance between the conjugate effect of self-focusing, diffraction and ionization, 4 which provides an efficient optical guiding mechanism for ultra-short optical beams in gases. Besides, the influence of laser filamentation on the self-guiding of femtosecond ͑fs͒ optical pulses in ionized gases was recently studied by the present authors in Ref.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nonlinear propagation of self-guided ultra-short pulses in ionized gases

2000

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The nonlinear propagation regimes of femtosecond pulses in noble gases and air are analyzed from an extended nonlinear Schrödinger equation coupled with the inertial response of an electron plasma created by multiphoton process and avalanche ionization. By means of integral relations supplemented by two variational approaches, it is shown that the electron density produced by photo-ionization defocuses the beam and arrests the self-focusing promoted by the Kerr response of the gas, so that a balance between both these effects can be realized for incident pulses with sufficiently high input power. Theoretical descriptions of self-guided beams emphasize the distortions caused by multiphoton sources in the temporal pulse profiles and they are confronted with direct numerical simulations. Dissipative effects as multiphoton absorption and the delayed Kerr response induced by air are finally discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonlinear propagation of self-guided ultra-short pulses in ionized gases

2000

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“…Laser filamentation, resulting from the nonlinear propagation of intense ultra‐short laser pulses in the atmosphere , has become a promising tool in the field of optical remote sensing. Powerful femtosecond laser pulses initiated from the ground can propagate in the atmosphere to deliver intensities of around 10 13 W/cm 2 up to altitudes of 20 km and were proposed for applications ranging from the generation of new laser guide stars for astronomical adaptive optics to the generation of an atmospheric electricity discharge .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spaceborne laser filamentation for atmospheric remote sensing

Dicaire

Jukna

Praz

et al. 2016

Laser & Photonics Reviews

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A proof-of-concept of space-borne laser filamentation for atmospheric remote sensing is presented. The remote generation of laser filaments from an Earth-orbiting satellite is shown by numerical simulations to be theoretically possible for a large range of laser parameters. The model includes a realistic representation of the stratified atmosphere and accounts for multi-species ionization and the dependence of air density upon the molecule type and altitude profile. The remote generation of a white light continuum extending from 350 nm to 1.1 μm within the filament is demonstrated, and hereby proposed as an atmospheric in-situ light source for monitoring greenhouse gases and pollutants on a global scale by light detection and ranging (lidar) techniques. Scaling laws are also derived for estimating the filament altitude as a function of peak pulse power (3 GW-3 TW), beam radii (10-200 cm) and for three different curvatures (300, 390, 500 km) for femtosecond infrared (800 nm) pulses. We find that operating conditions for remote supercontinuum generation are already available with current ground-based mobile laser technology and within reach of future space laser systems.

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“…While many applications using SCE require larger blue shifted spectrum, the extent of the blue shift of SCE from condensed media is reported to be constant due to the phenomenon of intensity clamping [9]. The phenomenon of intensity clamping proposed by Braun et al [10] has been a limiting factor to the blue shift of the SCE spectra. However, many recent works have predicted and demonstrated the presence of high peak intensities (~10 14 Wcm -2 ) in gaseous media under the external tight focusing conditions [11][12][13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supercontinuum Emission from Water using 40 fs Pulses in the External Tight Focusing Limit

Sreeja¹,

Rao²,

Bagchi³

et al. 2011

AIP Conference Proceedings

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From the initial observation of self-channeling of high-peak power femtosecond (fs) laser pulses in air, propagation of intense ultrashort laser pulses in different media has become one of the most investigated research areas. The supercontinuum emission (SCE), a spectral manifestation of the spatio-temporal modifications experienced by a propagating ultrashort laser pulse in a nonlinear medium, has many practical applications. However, the extent of blue shift of SCE is reported to be constant due to the phenomenon of "intensity clamping". To further explore the recently observed regime of filamentation without intensity clamping, we measured the evolution of spectral blue shift of SCE resulting from the propagation of fs pulses (800 nm, 40 fs, 1 kHz) in distilled water under different focusing geometries. The efficiency of SCE from tight focusing (f/6) geometry was always higher than the loose focusing (f/12) geometry for both linear and circular polarized pulses. The blue edge of the SCE spectrum (λ min ) was found to be blue shifted for f/6 focusing conditions compared to f/12 focusing geometry. The lower bound of the intensity deposited in the medium measured from the self-emission from the filament demonstrated the existence of intensities ~ 6 ×10 13 Wcm -2 , far beyond the clamping intensities achieved erstwhile.

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Self-Channeling of High Peak-Power Femtosecond Laser Pulses in Air

Cited by 74 publications

References 3 publications

Nonlinear propagation of self-guided ultra-short pulses in ionized gases

Nonlinear propagation of self-guided ultra-short pulses in ionized gases

Spaceborne laser filamentation for atmospheric remote sensing

Supercontinuum Emission from Water using 40 fs Pulses in the External Tight Focusing Limit

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