Energy Exchange between Femtosecond Laser Filaments in Air

Yi Liu (1) , Magali Durand (1, 2) , Shihua Chen (1) , Aurélien Houard (1) , Bernard Prade (1) , Benjamin Forestier (1) , André Mysyrowicz (1)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
2 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Châtillon]

We report on the energy exchange between femtosecond laser filaments in air. A traveling plasma grating formed at the intersection of the filaments is proposed to explain the energy transfer. In this moving plasma grating mediated mechanism the laser energy transfers from the lower frequency pulse to its higher frequency partner, while in a traditional Kerr nonlinearity mediated grating, energy transfer occurs in the opposite manner. Based on this mechanism, we demonstrate an energy transfer ratio as high as 50% for pulses with an energy of several millijoules.

Keywords: Filamentation; Nonlinear optics

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Yi Liu, Magali Durand, Shihua Chen, Aurélien Houard, Bernard Prade, et al.. Energy Exchange between Femtosecond Laser Filaments in Air. Physical Review Letters, 2010, 105 (5), pp.055003. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.055003⟩. ⟨hal-00510593⟩