Multiple filamentation of terawatt laser pulses in air

L. Bergé, S. Skupin, F. Lederer, G. Méjean, J. Yu, J. Kasparian, E. Salmon, J. P. Wolf, M. Rodriguez, L. Wöste, R. Bourayou, R. Sauerbrey

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

217 Scopus citations

Abstract

The multiple filamentation of collimated beams delivered by the teramobile laser was investigated for power upto several terawatts (TW). Long-range filaments were initiated by the most intense fluctuations of the input beam and persisted over several tens of meters. The small-scale spots arised and recurred rapidly in the diffraction plane in agreement with the optically turbulent light guides. The evolution of the filament patterns were qualitatively reproduced by an averaged-in-time-dimensional model derived from the propagation equations for ultrashort pulses.

Original languageEnglish
Article number225002
Pages (from-to)225002-1-225002-4
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume92
Issue number22
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 4 2004
Externally publishedYes

Funding

Experiments were realized in the framework of the Teramobile Project, funded jointly by CNRS and DFG.

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