HV discharges triggered by dual- and triple-frequency laser filaments

Abstract

We study the use of frequency upconversion schemes of near-IR picosecond laser pulses and compare their ability to guide and trigger electric discharges through filamentation in air. Upconversion, such as Second Harmonic Generation, is favorable for triggering electric discharges for given amount of available laser energy, even taking into account the losses inherent to frequency conversion. We focus on the practical question of optimizing the use of energy from a given available laser system and the potential advantage to use frequency conversion schemes.

References in corpus (5)

• Ultrashort filaments of light in weakly-ionized, optically-transparent media
• Generation of long-lived underdense channels using femtosecond filamentation in air
• Two-color interferometer for the study of laser filamentation triggered electric discharges in air
• Conductivity and Discharge Guiding Properties of Mid-IR Laser Filaments
• HV discharge acceleration by sequences of UV laser filaments with visible and near-infrared pulses