Influence of air humidity on 248-nm ultraviolet laser pulse filamentation

At first glance, the amount of water molecules naturally contained in humid air is negligibly small to affect filamentation of ultrashort laser pulses. However, here we show, both experimentally and numerically, that for ultraviolet laser pulses with 248 nm wavelength this is not true. We demonstrat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics letters 2019-05, Vol.44 (9), p.2165-2168
Main Authors: Shutov, Alexey V, Mokrousova, Daria V, Fedorov, Vladimir Yu, Seleznev, Leonid V, Rizaev, Georgy E, Shalova, Anna V, Zvorykin, Vladimir D, Tzortzakis, Stelios, Ionin, Andrey A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Electron density
Humidity
Lasers
Moisture content
Quantum theory
Ultraviolet lasers
Water chemistry
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Summary:At first glance, the amount of water molecules naturally contained in humid air is negligibly small to affect filamentation of ultrashort laser pulses. However, here we show, both experimentally and numerically, that for ultraviolet laser pulses with 248 nm wavelength this is not true. We demonstrate that with increase of air humidity the plasma channels generated by the ultraviolet laser pulses in air become longer and wider, while the corresponding electron density in humid air can be up to one order of magnitude higher compared to dry air.
ISSN:0146-9592
1539-4794
DOI:10.1364/OL.44.002165