Selected Topics in Ultrafast Optics

Femtosecond Laser Filamentation

Peach Lu, Hung-Wei Sun

Outline
Filamentation Physics

Self-focusing and Plasma defocusing

Slice-by-Slice model

Intensity Clamping

Filamentation Evolution

Advanced Topics and Applications

Multiple Filamentation

Nonlinear Interaction in Filaments

Self-Pulse Compression and Self-Spatial Mode Filtering

Other Applications

Motivation

Photo taken by Prof. Chen on 2014/03/14

Laboratoire d'Optique Applique, Palaiseau, France

White light (Supercontinuum) was observed when a high intensity

Ti-Sapphire laser was focused into a nonlinear crystal.
Filamentation has a strong potential to produce single isolated
attosecond burst.

Self-focusing and Tunnel Ionization

Chin, See Leang, Femtosecond Laser Filamentation

Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron

Self-focusing effect occurs when the peak power of the pulse is large
enough to overcome the linear diffraction.
Compared to multiphoton ionization, tunnel ionization can be seen as
quasi-static.

Slice-by-slice model

Filamentation is a series of plasma.

Can the self-focusing effect reach

"infinity and beyond" ?

Plasma defocusing

A gas where a large fraction of the atoms is ionized.

The change of refractive index is

4 2

2 0 2

The phase velocity could be larger than speed of light.

Intensity Clamping
Couairon and Mycyrowicz, Phys. Rep. 441, 47 (2007)

A larger peak intensity would increase the volume of the filament : the
intensity is still clamped.
The clamped intensity in air is independent of pressure.

Filamentation Evolution

Chin, See Leang, Femtosecond Laser Filamentation

Fraunhofer-Institut fr Optronik, Systemtechnik und Bildauswertung

The central/strongest slice self-focuses to the nearest point, while the

front part keeps on self-focusing.
The back part encounters the plasma left behind by the front part, which
giving rise to a very complex intensity distribution.
The whole process just repeats again and again and again......

Questions
1. Suppose we have two pulses with the same peak intensity, which one
is easier to self-focus and form a filament?
The ultrashort one (<30 fs pulses) or the longer one (>100 fs) ?
2. When does the filamentation come to an end?
3. A unlucky dust accidentally get in the path of the filament s core.
Will the subsequent filamentation be forced to terminate?

Outline
Filamentation Physics

Self-focusing and Plasma defocusing

Slice-by-Slice model

Intensity Clamping

Filamentation Evolution

Advanced Topics and Applications

Multiple Filamentation

Nonlinear Interaction in Filaments

Self-Pulse Compression and Self-Spatial Mode Filtering

Other Applications

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Mulitiple Filamentation

Chin, See Leang, Femtosecond Laser Filamentation

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L. Berge,et. al, Rep. Prog. Phys. 70 (2007)

Spatial irregularity induces local self-focusing.

Cooperation or competition between filaments?
Multiple filamentation is the basic limitation for the long distance control.
Hard to generate strong filaments at distances larger than 100 meters.

Paper Review: Externally refuelled optical filaments

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Maik Scheller, et.al., Nature Photonics (2014)

The background reservoir can provide energy to the filament core.

The low intensity dress acts like an artificial photon bath.
Filaments extended to 220 cm was demonstrated in their experiment.

SPM, Self-Steepening and Supercontinuum

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Rothenberg, et. al, Opt. Lett (1992)

SPM induced by both the neutral gas and the generated plasma.
Self-steepening due to the interaction between trailing edge and plasma.
Focusing the 800 nm pump pulse at 1.4 TW (60 mJ/ 42 fs) in air
generating 200 nm 14 m supercontinuum was observed by Thberge,
et. al in 2008.

Self-Pulse Compression

http://www.steingrube-home.de/science-daniel.html

The front part becomes narrower as the pulse propagates.

The back part spreads out into the background reservoir.
A single-cycle pulse can be achieved.

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Self-Spatial Mode Filtering

Chin, See Leang, Femtosecond Laser Filamentation

Thberge, et. al, PRL 97 (2006)

The lowest spatial mode would dominate.

The higher order mode would self-focus later, encountering the plasma
generated by lowest one.
It also occurs during the nonlinear interaction in the filaments.

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Paper Review: Self-Compression by filamentation

A Mysyrowicz, et.al., New Journal of Physics 10 (2008)

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Paper Review: Tunable Ultrashort Laser Generation

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Thberge, et. al, PRL 97 (2006)

The duration of the 4WM pulse can be altered by lengthening the filament.
The conversion efficiency can be as high as 60% in argon gas (1.5 atm).
The mode quality and energy stability are all excellent because the 4WM
pulse is locked with the intensity-clamped and spatial self-filtered filament.

Comparison with the hollow fiber

L. Galmann, et. al, Appl. Phys. B 86 (2007)

Self-steepening + Third-order Harmonics : Shorter wavelengths.

Higher throughput and less sensitive to experimental conditions.
The ability of self-compression to single-cycle pulse.

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Paper Review: Filamentation for Weather Control

Jingjing Ju, et.al., PRE (2013)

Filamentation can induce condensation nuclei in air.

The temperature gradient in the chamber was maintained using a cold
plate.

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Paper Review: Filaments for Atmospheric Analysis

J. Kasparian,et. al, Science 301 (2003)

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Summary
Filamentation is the region where the intensity of the laser is
clamped owing to the equilibrium between self-focusing and plasma
defocusing effect.
The intensity clamping enables a stable and high conversion
efficiency nonlinear interaction.
The self-action of the filamentation, such as self-spatial mode filtering
and self-compression, makes itself a widely-used tool in many
applications.
How to optimize your system to generate a really long and stable
filamentation still remains a popular issue in this field.

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