Time-evolution of the plasma channel at the trail of a self-guided IR femtosecond laser pulse in air

Stellios Tzortzakis (1) , Bernard Prade (1) , Michel A. Franco (1) , André Mysyrowicz (1)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée

The density and decay kinetics of a plasma channel created in air by a self-guided intense ultra-short laser pulse is determined by a new electric cross-conductivity method and by diffraction interferometry. A fast decay is measured, due to the dominant intrinsic recombination process at high plasma density.

Keywords: filamentation; plasma; nolinear optics

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Stellios Tzortzakis, Bernard Prade, Michel A. Franco, André Mysyrowicz. Time-evolution of the plasma channel at the trail of a self-guided IR femtosecond laser pulse in air. Optics Communications, 2000, 181 (1), pp.123-127. ⟨10.1016/S0030-4018(00)00734-3⟩. ⟨hal-00463716⟩