Ebook: Femtosecond Laser Filamentation

Femtosecond Laser Filamentation gives a comprehensive review of the physics of propagation of intense femtosecond laser pulses in optical media (principally air) and the applications and challenges of this new technique.

This book presents the modern understanding of the physics of femtosecond laser pulse propagation, including unusual new effects such as the self-transformation of the pulse into a white light laser pulse, intensity clamping, the physics of multiple filamentation and competition, and how filaments’ ability to melt glass leads to wave guide writing. The potential applications of laser filamentation in atmospheric sensing and the generation of other electromagnetic pulses from the UV to the radio frequency are treated, together with possible future challenges in the excitation of super-excited states of molecules. Exciting new phenomena such as filament induced ultrafast birefringence and the excitation of molecular rotational wave packets and their multiple revivals in air (gases) will also be discussed.

This volume provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date discussion of these topics currently available. It will be of great interest to scientists and researchers using intense femtosecond laser pulses as well as to graduate students and researchers who wish to learn more about the field.

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When a powerful femtosecond laser pulse propagates in an optical medium, self-focusing occurs. This book reviews the current up-to-date understanding of the physics of propagation leading to the self-transformation of the laser pulse into a white light laser pulse during self-focusing and filamentation. The physics of multiple filamentation and competition will be discussed. Its capability to melting glasses inside the filaments is observed which explains the physics of wave guide writing. Its potential applications in atmospheric sensing and material processing together with possible future challenges in the interaction of such self-transformed white light laser pulses with atoms and molecules will be treated. Nonlinear optics such as third harmonic generation in the filaments with self-phase locking will also be discussed.