Revival of femtosecond laser plasma filaments in air by a nanosecond laser

Bing Zhou (1) , Selcuk Akturk (1) , Bernard Prade (1) , Yves-Bernard André (1) , Aurélien Houard (1) , Yi Liu (1) , Michel Franco (1) , Ciro d'Amico (1) , Estelle Salmon (2) , Zuo-Qiang Hao (2) , Noëlle Lascoux (2) , André Mysyrowicz (1)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
2 LASIM - Laboratoire de Spectrométrie Ionique et Moléculaire

Short lived plasma channels generated through filamentation of femtosecond laser pulses in air can be revived after several milliseconds by a delayed nanosecond pulse. Electrons initially ionized from oxygen molecules and subsequently captured by neutral oxygen molecules provide the long-lived reservoir of low affinity allowing this process. A Bessel-like nanosecond-duration laser beam can easily detach these weakly bound electrons and multiply them in an avalanche process. We have experimentally demonstrated such revivals over a channel length of 50 cm by focusing the nanosecond laser with an axicon.

Keywords: nonlinear optics; plasma; filamentation

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

Bing Zhou, Selcuk Akturk, Bernard Prade, Yves-Bernard André, Aurélien Houard, et al.. Revival of femtosecond laser plasma filaments in air by a nanosecond laser. Optics Express, 2009, 17 (14), pp.11450. ⟨10.1364/OE.17.011450⟩. ⟨hal-00457966⟩