Curved Plasma Channel Generation Using Ultraintense Airy Beams

TLDR

Plasma channel generation with ultraintense lasers is used for remote sensing, terahertz generation, and lightning control, but has so far produced only straight filaments from axially symmetric pulses. The study reports the experimental observation of curved plasma channels in air produced by femtosecond Airy beams. The curved channel arises because the main intensity lobe of the Airy beam follows a bent trajectory, and broadband radiation from different filament sections propagates along angularly resolved paths. Curved plasma channels were experimentally observed in air with femtosecond Airy beams, and secondary channels bifurcate from the primary channel at multiple points along the beam.

Abstract

Plasma channel generation (or filamentation) using ultraintense laser pulses in dielectric media has a wide spectrum of applications, ranging from remote sensing to terahertz generation to lightning control. So far, laser filamentation has been triggered with the use of ultrafast pulses with axially symmetric spatial beam profiles, thereby generating straight filaments. We report the experimental observation of curved plasma channels generated in air using femtosecond Airy beams. In this unusual propagation regime, the tightly confined main intensity feature of the axially nonsymmetric laser beam propagates along a bent trajectory, leaving a curved plasma channel behind. Secondary channels bifurcate from the primary bent channel at several locations along the beam path. The broadband radiation emanating from different longitudinal sections of the curved filament propagates along angularly resolved trajectories.