Abstract
Laser powers exceeding GW level are easily obtained with chirped pulse amplification systems producing energies in the millijoule range with pulsewidths around 100 - 200 fs. We observed, for the first time, the formation of stable filaments by propagating high peak-power laser pulses in air. These pulses channel into filaments with typical diameters of 70 µm - 100 µm and propagate a distance as large as 30 m. They are the result of the combined effect of diffraction, nonlinear refraction, multiphoton ionization and dispersion. They form spatial and temporal solitons, i.e. light bullets [1]. These light bullets are robust. They can propagate in highly turbulent media without any noticeable change. These filaments may have interesting applications such as laser induced lightning [2] and laser pumped x-ray sources [3,4].
© 1994 Optical Society of America
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