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arXiv · 1402.5019

Lasing of ambient air with microjoule pulse energy pumped by a multi terawatt IR femtosecond laser

Guillaume Point·Yi Liu·Yohann Brelet·Sergey Mitryukovskiy·Pengji Ding·Aurélien Houard·André Mysyrowicz
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Abstract

We report on the lasing action of atmospheric air pumped by an 800 nm femtosecond laser pulse with peak power up to 4 TW. Lasing emission at 428 nm increases rapidly over a small range of pump laser power, followed by saturation above ~ 1.5 TW. The maximum lasing pulse energy is measured to be 2.6 uJ corresponding to an emission power in the MW range, while a maximum conversion efficiency of is measured at moderate pump pulse energy. The optical gain inside the filament plasma is estimated to be excess of 0.7/cm. The lasing emission shows a doughnut profile, reflecting the spatial distribution of the pump-generated white-light continuum that acts as a seed for the lasing. We attribute the pronounced saturation to the defocusing of the seed in the plasma amplifying region and to the saturation of the seed intensity.

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Guillaume Point, Yi Liu, Yohann Brelet, Sergey Mitryukovskiy, Pengji Ding, Aurélien Houard, André Mysyrowicz. 2014-02-20. Lasing of ambient air with microjoule pulse energy pumped by a multi terawatt IR femtosecond laser. https://doi.org/10.1364/ol.39.001725

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