Remote Atmospheric Lasing

摘要

This paper considers a remote atmospheric lasing configuration which utilizes a combination of an ultrashort pulse laser to form a plasma filament (seed electrons) by tunneling ionization and a heater beam which thermalizes the seed electrons. The thermalized electrons collisionally excite the nitrogen molecules and induce lasing in the ultraviolet. The lasing gain is sufficiently high to reach saturation within the length of the plasma filament. A remotely generated ultraviolet source may have applications for standoff detection of biological and chemical agents.