Filamentation characteristics of focused fs pulses in atmosphere

Abstract

We present the experimental investigations on the filament characteristics of sharply focused fs pulses (800 nm, 45 fs, 1 kHz) in air. Pulses with input powers in 3-12.2 P Cr range were focused using three different focusing geometries f/#10, f/#15 and f/#20 corresponding to numerical apertures (NA) of 0.05, 0.033 and 0.025, respectively. The dynamics of filaments were observed via direct imaging of the entire reaction zone. The length of the filament has decreased with increasing NA from 0.025 to 0.05, while, the filament width has increased. For a given focusing geometry, the filament length and width increased with increasing power. However with higher NA, the length and width were observed to saturate at higher input powers. With the highest NA of 0.05 and higher input powers used in the current study, the presence of coherently interacting multiple filaments either resulting in a fusion or exchange of power. © 2012 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).