Tesla coil discharges guided by femtosecond laser filaments in air

Yohann Brelet (1) , Aurélien Houard (1) , Léonid Arantchouk (2) , Benjamin Forestier (1) , Yi Liu (1) , Bernard Prade (1) , Jérôme Carbonnel (1) , Yves-Bernard André (1) , André Mysyrowicz (1)

1 ILM - Interaction Laser-Matière
2 LPP - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas

A Tesla coil generator was designed to produce high voltage pulses oscillating at 100 kHz synchronisable with a nanosecond temporal jitter. Using this compact high voltage generator, we demonstrate reproducible meter long discharges in air at a repetition rate of 1 Hz. Triggering and guiding of the discharges are performed in air by femtosecond laser filaments.

Keywords: plasma light propagation; plasma sources; discharges (electric); high-speed optical techniques; nonlinear optics

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Yohann Brelet, Aurélien Houard, Léonid Arantchouk, Benjamin Forestier, Yi Liu, et al.. Tesla coil discharges guided by femtosecond laser filaments in air. Applied Physics Letters, 2012, 100 (18), pp.181112. ⟨10.1063/1.4711208⟩. ⟨hal-00852034⟩