Journal Article

Curved Plasma Channel Generation Using Ultraintense Airy Beams

Moloney, Jerome V, Siviloglou, Georgios A, Christodoulides, Demetrios N, Kolesik, Miroslav, Polynkin, Pavel

2009

Overview

Plasma channel generation (or filamentation) using ultraintense laser pulses in dielectric media has a wide spectrum of applications, ranging from remote sensing to terahertz generation to lightning control. So far, laser filamentation has been triggered with the use of ultrafast pulses with axially symmetric spatial beam profiles, thereby generating straight filaments. We report the experimental observation of curved plasma channels generated in air using femtosecond Airy beams. In this unusual propagation regime, the tightly confined main intensity feature of the axially nonsymmetric laser beam propagates along a bent trajectory, leaving a curved plasma channel behind. Secondary channels bifurcate from the primary bent channel at several locations along the beam path. The broadband radiation emanating from different longitudinal sections of the curved filament propagates along angularly resolved trajectories.

• Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science,The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subject: air / Artificial satellites / Beam trapping, self-focusing and defocusing; self-phase modulation / Exact sciences and technology / Experiments / Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications) / Innovations / Laser beams / Lasers / lightning / Nonlinear optics / Optical focus / Optical lenses / Optics / Physics / Physics of gases, plasmas and electric discharges / Physics of plasmas and electric discharges / Plasma / Plasma density / Plasma lengths / Plasma production and heating / Plasma production and heating by laser beams / Remote sensing / Trajectories / Wave diffraction / Wave packets