title: Characteristics of multiple filaments generated by femtosecond laser pulses in air: prefocused versus free propagation.
abstract: The characteristics of the multiple filaments formed by prefocused and freely propagating femtosecond laser pulses are investigated and compared. It is shown in our experiments that the diameter, length, stability, and interaction for the two cases can be quite different. The filaments formed by prefocused beam indicate dynamic spatial evolution with higher laser intensity and electron density. They have a typical diameter of 100 microm are of shorter length. In the free propagation case, the filaments exhibit interesting properties such as hundred-meter propagation distance and mm-size diameter. Moreover, only the interaction of the filaments with the energy background affects the evolution of the filaments. Filament-filament interactions such as the filament splitting and merging were not observed in this case.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Optical Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China.
authors.forename: Zuoqiang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Zhe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xiaohui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Zhiyuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Zhan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.forename: Zhaohua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jiayong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.forename: Yunquan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu