title: Molecular-alignment-assisted high-energy supercontinuum pulse generation in air.
abstract: We demonstrate controllable generation of a high-energy supercontinuum pulse of 1.8 mJ through femtosecond filamentation in prealigned diatomic molecules in air. For high-energy femtosecond laser pulses of linear polarization, the focusing condition is loosened by the cross-defocusing effect from the perpendicularly orientated molecules, which promotes the high-energy supercontinuum generation with suppressed multifilamentation and decreased multiphoton ionization loss due to the reduced ionization probability.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Xueshi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Haifeng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: Heping
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zeng