Control of the Onset of Filamentation in Condensed Media

Abstract

Propagation of intense, ultrashort laser pulses through condensed media like crystals of BaF${}_2$ and sapphire results in the formation of filaments. We demonstrate that the onset of filamentation may be controlled by rotating the plane of polarization of incident light. We directly visualize filamentation in BaF_2 via six-photon absorption-induced fluorescence and, concomitantly, by probing the spectral and spatial properties of white light that is generated.

arXiv commentTo appear in Phys. Rev. A

References in corpus (5)

• Dynamic Nonlinear X-waves for Femtosecond Pulse Propagation in Water
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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Effect of intense, ultrashort laser pulses on DNA plasmids in their native state: strand breakages induced by {\it in-situ} electrons and radicals