Kilometer-range nonlinear propagation of femtosecond laser pulses.
Ultrashort, high-power laser pulses propagating vertically in the atmosphere have been observed over more than 20 km using an imaging 2-m astronomical telescope. This direct observation in several wavelength bands shows indications for filament formation at distances as far as 2 km in the atmosphere. Moreover, the beam divergence at 5 km altitude is smaller than expected, bearing evidence for whole-beam parallelization about the nonlinear focus. We discuss implications for white-light Lidar applications.
Rodriguez
Miguel
M
Teramobile, Institut für Experimentalphysik, Freie Universität Berlin, Arnimallee 14, D-14195 Berlin, Germany.
Bourayou
Riad
R
Méjean
Guillaume
G
Kasparian
Jérôme
J
Yu
Jin
J
Salmon
Estelle
E
Scholz
Alexander
A
Stecklum
Bringfried
B
Eislöffel
Jochen
J
Laux
Uwe
U
Hatzes
Artie P
AP
Sauerbrey
Roland
R
Wöste
Ludger
L
Wolf
Jean-Pierre
JP