Optimal laser pulse energy partitioning for air ionization

Abstract

We investigate the pulse partitioning of a 6.3 mJ, 450 fs pulse at 1030 nm to produce plasma channels. At such moderate energies, splitting the energy into several sub-pulses reduces the ionization efficiency and thus does not extend the plasma lifetime. We numerically show that when sufficient energy to produce multifilamentation is available, splitting the pulse temporally in a pulse train increases the gas temperature compared to a filament bundle of the same energy. This could improve the mean free path of the free electrons, therefore enhancing the efficiency of discharge triggering.

Correcting typo in Eq. (12) and unit of ${\beta }_{ep}$ in Table I

References in corpus (4)

• Ultrashort filaments of light in weakly-ionized, optically-transparent media
• Higher-order Kerr terms allow ionization-free filamentation in gases
• Transition from plasma- to Kerr-driven laser filamentation
• Energy deposition from focused terawatt laser pulses in air undergoing multifilamentation

Cited by in corpus (5)

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• HV discharges triggered by dual- and triple-frequency laser filaments
• Maximizing energy deposition by shaping few-cycle laser pulses
• Linearity of charge measurement in laser filaments
• Physics and technology of Laser Lightning Control