Curved Plasma Channel Generation in AirUsing Ultra-Intense Self-Bending Airy Beams

摘要

When an ultra-intense, ultra-shortlaser pulse propagates in air, the defocus-ing effect of the plasma generated viamulti-photon ionization dynamicallybalances the self-focusing of the beamand prevents it from collapsing into asingularity. The hot core of the beam,composed of the high-intensity laserfield and generated plasma, is referred toas the filament. Filaments are typicallyabout 100 μm in diameter and exhibitself-guided, sub-diffractive propagationover long distances.