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Energy Exchange between Femtosecond Laser Filaments in Air

Source: Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 055003 (2010); doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.055003

Published 29 July 2010

PACS
  • 52.38.Hb
    Self-focussing, channeling and filamentation in plasmas
  • 42.65.Jx
    Beam trapping, optical self-focusing and defocusing
  • 42.65.Sf
    Dynamics of nonlinear optical systems
  • YEAR: 2010
PUBLICATION DATA
ISSN:
1553-9601 (online)
Publisher:
AIP is a member of CrossRef APS
Y. Liu,1 M. Durand,1,2 S. Chen,1 A. Houard,1 B. Prade,1 B. Forestier,1 and A. Mysyrowicz1
1Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée, ENSTA ParisTech, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS UMR 7639, Palaiseau, 91761, France
2Département d'Optique Théorique et  Appliquée, ONERA, 91761 Palaiseau, France
We report on the energy exchange between femtosecond laser filaments in air. A traveling plasma grating formed at the intersection of the filaments is proposed to explain the energy transfer. In this moving plasma grating mediated mechanism the laser energy transfers from the lower frequency pulse to its higher frequency partner, while in a traditional Kerr nonlinearity mediated grating, energy transfer occurs in the opposite manner. Based on this mechanism, we demonstrate an energy transfer ratio as high as 50% for pulses with an energy of several millijoules. ©2010 The American Physical Society
History: Received 11 January 2010; published 29 July 2010
Permalink: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v105/e055003
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