Ionization assisted self-guiding of femtosecond laser pulses Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • We propose a new mechanism for the self-guiding of ultra-intense sub-picosecond laser pulses in gaseous media. It can be realized via optical field ionization by a laser pulse as it propagates inside an expanding cylindrical shock wave launched into ambient gas by a decayed plasma filament. In experiments, the filament was created in a hydrogen jet by a low energy femtosecond laser pre-pulse line focused with axicon lens. We demonstrated ionization-assisted guiding in structures with diameter as small as 14m and up to 3.5mm long. The intensity reached 51017W/cm2 in a single mode propagating for more than 100 Rayleigh lengths.

published proceedings

  • Physics of Plasmas

author list (cited authors)

  • Morozov, A., Goltsov, A., Chen, Q., Scully, M., & Suckewer, S.

citation count

  • 8

complete list of authors

  • Morozov, A||Goltsov, A||Chen, Q||Scully, M||Suckewer, S

publication date

  • May 2018