Abstract
High-power femtosecond laser pulses can lead to strong nonlinear interactions during the propagation through a medium. In air the well known self-guiding effect produces long intense and moderately ionized filaments, in which a broad white-light continuum from the near UV to the mid IR is generated. The forward directed white-light can be used to do range resolved broadband absorption measurements, which opens the way to a real multi-component lidar for the simultaneous detection of several trace gases. On the other hand, enhanced nonlinear scattering and characteristic emission from the filament region, as well as from the interaction of intense pulses with aerosols, can be observed. This opens perspectives towards a novel kind of analysis of atmospheric constituents, based upon nonlinear optics. Additionally, the conductivity of the filaments can be used for lightning control. Here we present the basic concepts of the femtosecond lidar, laboratory experiments and recent results of atmospheric measurements.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 135-146 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering |
| Volume | 5149 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2002 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | International Conference on Lasers, Applications, and Technologies 2002: Laser Applications in Medicine, Biology, and Environmental Science - Moscow, Russian Federation Duration: Jun 22 2002 → Jun 27 2002 |
Keywords
- Aerosol detection
- Atmospheric propagation
- Lidar
- Lightning control
- Remote sensing
- Ultrafast lasers
- Ultrafast nonlinear optics
- White-light generation