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Nonlinear Interaction of Intense Ultrashort Filaments

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Nonlinear Photonics and Novel Optical Phenomena

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Optical Sciences ((SSOS,volume 170))

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Abstract

We review our recent experimental studies on nonlinear interaction of intense ultrashort filaments in air. Strong spatiotemporal couplings are observed for non-collinearly interacting filaments and their intensity interference assists the formation of wavelength-scale periodic plasma density in the interaction region. Plasma waveguides based on such periodic modulation are experimentally observed as a potential high-intensity laser plasma component. As a result of the periodic modulation of the refractive index, plasma gratings are established with a relatively long lifetime, giving rising to time-delayed diffraction and efficient energy transfer between the interacting filaments. Two-dimensional plasma gratings as well as two-dimensional diffracted arrays are observed. The non-collinear filament interaction induces observable filament elongation and remarkable third harmonic enhancement of more than two orders of magnitude. Nonlinear filament interaction could be controlled to coalesce the intersecting ultraviolet femtosecond filaments into a single intense filament of a quite small core diameter.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by National Natural Science Fund (10525416 and 10804032) and National key project for basic research (2011CB808105). Contributions from Heping Zeng’s group members and students (Xuan Yang, Yongdong Wang, Liping Shi, Shuai Yuan, Jingxin Ding, Haifeng Pan, Wenxue Li, Jian Wu, and liang’en Ding) are greatly appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Room A1215, Science Building, 3663 North Zhongshan Road, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Heping Zeng

  2. State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Room A1110, Science Building, 3663 North Zhongshan Road, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Jia Liu

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  1. Heping Zeng
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  2. Jia Liu
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Correspondence to Heping Zeng .

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  1. , Physics & Astronomy, San Francisco State University, Holloway Ave 1600, San Francisco, 94132, USA

    Zhigang Chen

  2. INRS-EMT, Université du Québec, boul. Lionel-Boulet 1650, Varennes, J3X 1S2, Canada

    Roberto Morandotti

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Zeng, H., Liu, J. (2012). Nonlinear Interaction of Intense Ultrashort Filaments. In: Chen, Z., Morandotti, R. (eds) Nonlinear Photonics and Novel Optical Phenomena. Springer Series in Optical Sciences, vol 170. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3538-9_10

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