Characterization of the initial filamentation of a relativistic electron beam passing through a plasma

The linear instability that induces a relativistic electron beam passing through a plasma with return current to filament transversely is often related to some filamentation mode with the wave vector normal to the beam or confused with Weibel modes. We show that these modes may not be relevant in this matter and identify the most unstable mode on the two-stream or filamentation branch as the main trigger for filamentation. This sets both the characteristic transverse and longitudinal filamentation scales in the nonresistive initial stage.     

Self-focusing of a focused femtosecond laser pulse in air

The regularities of self-focusing and filamentation of spatially focused ultra-short laser radiation in air are theoretically considered. The relationship between beam focusing sharpness and effective characteristics of the filamentation zone is investigated. The formation of ‘narrow’ and ‘wide’ light filaments compared to that of collimated radiation filamentation, upon high-power focused laser pulse propagation, is established.     

Interplay of collisions and temperature on the filamentary structures of a relativistic electron beam in plasmas

A systematic study on the Weibel instability induced filamentation of a relativistic electron beam is made by including the effects of collisions and temperature. The stabilization and de-stabilization of the beam filamentation due to beam temperature and plasma collisions, respectively, is explored through an analytical model and PIC simulations. The de-stabilization of the beam filamentation is attributed to the collision driven negative energy wave generation in the beam plasma system.     

Filamentation of an annular laser beam in a short wavelength laser produced plasma

We report on the first observations of periodic structures caused by the filamentation instability. These structures were observed on 0.35 μm laser irradiated planar target experiments. Comparison of these observations with self-focusing theory indicates that even though thermal filamentation may initiate the instability, ponderomotive force effects eventually dominate the actual filamentation process.     

Filamentation of ultrashort light pulses in a liquid scattering medium

We have studied filamentation of 1-ps laser pulses in a scattering medium (aqueous suspension of 2-μm polystyrene microspheres) and compared filamentation dynamics to that in pure water. Our results indicate that light scattering does not alter filamentation dynamics in general, but rather results in farther position of the nonlinear focus, shorter filament length, and the development of speckle structure in the peripheral part of the beam. The experimental observations are qualitatively reproduced by the numerical model which accounts for diffraction, self-focusing, multiphoton absorption, and light scattering introduced through a stochastic diffusion and diffraction term.     

Dynamics of traveling waves in the transverse section of a laser

We analyze the general features of the formation and interaction of transverse traveling waves and the appearance of filamentation in broad area semiconductor lasers with current profiling. For small apertures, the emitted profile is symmetric consisting of two counterpropagating transverse traveling waves, both emanating from the center of the device. For larger apertures, the emission becomes asymmetric as one of the traveling waves expands to occupy an increased area while the other occupies the remaining, smaller spatial region. In both devices, the pattern becomes unstable at higher injection currents due to optical filamentation, although an intermediate state is present in the wider device whereby the dominant wave undergoes a Hopf bifurcation before filamentation occurs.     

On self-focusing of an ultrashort intense relativistic laser pulse in a plasma

The development of the spatiotemporal (filamentation) instability of a laser pulse upon excitation of a plasma wave is studied numerically and analytically. It is shown that first, as in a medium with inertialless cubic nonlinearity, the filamentation of radiation occurs and then filaments are attracted to each other. The following evolution differs weakly from the evolution of a smoothed wave beam in a medium with inertial nonlinear response.     

Laser-filamentation-induced condensation and snow formation in a cloud chamber

Using 1 kHz, 9 mJ femtosecond laser pulses, we demonstrate laser-filamentation-induced spectacular snow formation in a cloud chamber. An intense updraft of warm moist air is generated owing to the continuous heating by the high-repetition filamentation. As it encounters the cold air above, water condensation and large-sized particles spread unevenly across the whole cloud chamber via convection and cyclone like action on a macroscopic scale. This indicates that high-repetition filamentation plays a significant role in macroscopic laser-induced water condensation and snow formation.     

利用空心光纤探测飞秒脉冲在氩气中成丝过程中的光谱演变

采用420μm纤芯直径、18cm长的空心光纤作为探测器，在强飞秒激光在氩气中成丝的条件下，研究了成丝不同部位的光谱变化.实验结果表明由于成丝范围内不同部位的脉冲宽度不一样，导致空心光纤位于成丝的不同位置时所获得的光谱展宽也不尽相同.在成丝长度范围内的特定位置可以将50fs入射脉冲最窄压缩至24.8fs.     

Amplification of femtosecond laser filaments in Ti:sapphire

Femtosecond laser filamentation is studied in a broadband amplifying medium, sapphire doped with electronically excited Ti ions. Evidence for fluence amplification of self-guided pulses, increase of filamentation length, as well as a lowering of the input laser power necessary for filamentation is reported.     

Filamentation and stimulated Brillouin scattering in a turbulent plasma

This paper presents a theory of filamentation and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) of high-frequency electromagnetic radiation in a weakly collisional plasma with ion-acoustic turbulence. When the square of the wavelength of the plasma perturbations is less than the product of the two mean free path lengths of an electron with respect to its collisions with turbulent fluctuations and with electrons, the influence of cold highly collisional electrons on the parametric instabilities becomes apparent. It is shown that the plasma turbulence lowers the filamentation threshold, and the SBS threshold can be either lowered or raised. The dependence of the SBS and filamentation thresholds on the electron mean free path length in the turbulent plasma and on the anisotropy of the plasma turbulence is determined. The corresponding dependence of the spatial scale of the most efficiently growing filaments and their spatial growth rate are found. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 113, 629–645 (February 1998)     

FILAMENTATION INSTABILITY OF LASER BEAMS IN NONLOCAL NONLINEAR MEDIA

The filamentation instability of laser beams propagating in nonlocal nonlinear media is investigated. It is shown that the filamentation instability can occur in weakly nonlocal self-focusing media for any degree of nonlocality, and in defocusing media for the input light intensity exceeding a threshold related to the degree of nonlocality. A linear stability analysis is used to predict the initial growth rate of the instability. It is found that the nonlocality tends to suppress filamentation instability in self-focusing media and to stimulate filamentation instability in self-defocusing media. Numerical simulations confirm the results of the linear stability analysis and disclose a recurrence phenomenon in nonlocal self-focusing media analogous to the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam problem.     

Parameters of a Light Bullet

JETP Letters - The absolute parameters of a light bullet formed upon the filamentation of femtosecond mid-infrared radiation under the conditions of anomalous group velocity dispersion have been...     

Random phase mask in a filamentation regime: application to the localization of point sources

We present a optical system with an extended point-spread function (PSF) for the localization of point sources in the visible and IR spectral ranges with a subpixel precision. This compact system involves a random phase mask (RPM) as its unique component. It exhibits original properties, because this RPM is used in a particular regime, called the "filamentation regime," before the speckle region. The localization is performed by calculating the phase correlation between the PSF and the image obtained under off-axis illumination. Numerical simulations are presented to assess the basic optical properties of this RPM in the filamentation regime.     

Self-focusing of profiled ultrashort-wavelength laser beams in air

We report on the results of laboratory experiments of filamentation of sharply focused gigawatt femtosecond laser radiation passed through various aperture diaphragms in air. For the multiple filamentation regime, the dependences of the length and spatial structure of the filamentation region on the initial beam profile are established. It is found that light beam profiling by a diaphragm leads in some cases to a displacement of the filamentation region and to repeated self-focusing of radiation behind the linear focal waist. In the beam of the same power in the absence of a diaphragm and in the regime of the formation of a single filament, this effect terminates in front of the geometrical focus. The experimental results are illustrated by numerical simulation data.     

Long-distance femtosecond laser filaments in air

This paper reviews the recent studies of filamentation of femtosecond lasers pulses in air in the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The filamentation mechanisms of free propagated femtosecond laser pulses, effect of air turbulence on the filamentation, interaction between filaments are presented.     

黑腔中空间束匀滑光束成丝不稳定性的数值模拟北大核心CSCD

为深入研究黑腔内激光成丝不稳定性产生和发展,建立了空间束匀滑光束的传播模型,利用三维激光等离子体相互作用程序LAP3D模拟了黑腔物理条件下的大尺度成丝现象。模拟结果可正确描述成丝后光强的束发散现象及谱空间光强分布特征。从激光能量参数角度分析了导致成丝不稳定性发展的物理因素,并讨论了应用空间束匀滑技术抑制成丝不稳定性的局限性。研究表明:空间束匀滑光束发展成丝的能力取决于光斑内小焦斑的成丝表现,当具备成丝能力的小焦斑份额达到一定比例后,就会导致整个空间束匀滑光束成丝,因此对于光斑平均功率密度较高的光束,须考虑结合其他束匀滑手段来抑制成丝发展。     

Experimental confirmation of high-stability of fluorescence in a femtosecond laser filament in air

Femtosecond laser filamentation is particularly interesting for remote sensing pollutant in the atmosphere. In this work, we investigate the local shot-to-shot stability of the filament induced fluorescence of nitrogen in air. It is found that the root-mean square fluctuation of the fluorescence signal is at least one order of magnitude lower than that of the linear propagation case. In practice, it would contribute to improve the robustness of long distance spectroscopic analysis of the fluorescence of pollutant molecules inside the filament. We further point out that this unique property of filament induced fluorescence spectroscopy is because of the intensity clamping, a profound phenomenon of filamentation.     

Spatially resolved measurements of laser filamentation in long scale length underdense plasmas with and without beam smoothing

The onset of filamentation, following the interaction of a relatively long (τ(L)?1 ns) and intense (I(L)?5×10(14) W/cm(2)) laser pulse with a neopentane filled gas bag target, has been experimentally studied via the proton radiography technique, in conditions of direct relevance to the indirect drive inertial confinement fusion scheme. The density gradients associated with filamentation onset have been spatially resolved yielding direct and unambiguous evidence of filament formation and quantitative information about the filamentation mechanism in agreement with previous theoretical modelings. Experimental data confirm that, once spatially smoothed laser beams are used, filamentation is not a relevant phenomenon during the heating laser beams propagation through typical hohlraum gas fills.     

Half-cycle pulses in the mid-infrared from a two-color laser-induced filament

Four-wave mixing (FWM) of femtosecond near-infrared laser pulses and its second harmonic in the filamentation regime is shown to give rise to ultrashort field waveforms in the mid-infrared with pulse widths as short as a half of the field cycle and produce ultrabroadband supercontinuum spectra stretching from the mid-IR to the terahertz region. Generation of 7-fs pulses centered at 4.35 μm is demonstrated by a two-color filamentation experiment, where the 25-fs, 800-nm fundamental-wavelength output of a Ti: Sapphire laser is mixed with its second harmonic. The spectral and temporal properties of the mid-IR waveforms, as well as their emission pattern, are consistent with the FWM scenario of frequency conversion generalized to include the Kerr effect and ionization-induced refractive-index modulation.