High current permanent discharges in air induced by femtosecond laser filamentation

Aurélien Houard (1) , Ciro d'Amico (1) , Yi Liu (1) , Yves-Bernard André (1) , Michel Franco (1) , Bernard Prade (1) , André Mysyrowicz (1) , Estelle Salmon (2) , Pascal Pierlot (3) , L.-M. Cleon (3)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
2 LASIM - Laboratoire de Spectrométrie Ionique et Moléculaire
3 R&D - SNCF - Département recherche et développements

Filaments created in air by an intense femtosecond laser pulse in the presence of an electric field generate a highly conductive permanent plasma column.

Keywords: discharges (electric); plasma production by laser; high-speed optical techniques

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Aurélien Houard, Ciro d'Amico, Yi Liu, Yves-Bernard André, Michel Franco, et al.. High current permanent discharges in air induced by femtosecond laser filamentation. Applied Physics Letters, 2007, 90 (17), pp.171501. ⟨10.1063/1.2734396⟩. ⟨hal-00454781⟩