Coherent and incoherent radial THz radiation emission from femtosecond filaments in air

Ciro d'Amico (1) , Aurélien Houard (1) , Michel A. Franco (1) , Bernard Prade (1) , André Mysyrowicz (1)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée

We show that the THz radiation emitted in the radial direction by a femtosecond filament created in air is linearly polarized and coherent. By applying an electric field along the filament axis this THz radiation is strongly enhanced and becomes incoherent and not polarized.

Keywords: laser; terahertz; filamentation

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Ciro d'Amico, Aurélien Houard, Michel A. Franco, Bernard Prade, André Mysyrowicz. Coherent and incoherent radial THz radiation emission from femtosecond filaments in air. Optics Express, 2007, 15 (23), pp.15274. ⟨10.1364/OE.15.015274⟩. ⟨hal-00454588⟩