July 2016
Spotlight Summary by Taek Yong Hwang
Angle-resolved multioctave supercontinua from mid-infrared laser filaments
Since its first demonstration by Alfano and Shapiro, supercontinuum generation has been one of the most interesting topics in laser physics for more than four decades, due to its unique capability of dramatically broadening the laser pulse spectrum. Recently, with advancements of femtosecond (fs) laser systems, supercontinuum generation can also be observed in air via fs laser-induced filamentation, and this has opened the door to new fundamental and industrial research such as the compression of ultrashort pulses and the development of new UV sources for lithography.
In this Optics Letters article, by using mid-IR fs laser-induced filamentation in air, A. V. Mitrofanov et. al generate a multioctave high energy supercontinuum output stretching from 0.25 to 6.5 μm. By analyzing the on- and off-axis properties of the output with the three dimensional time-dependent generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation including the photoionization rate, the authors clearly reveal complex off-axial dynamics, where photoionization plays a key role in the enhancement of scattering and a blue shift of the drive field. They also find that this blue shift can be used to easily compress high peak power laser pulses in the mid-IR. With thorough understanding of the authors’ analysis, it is expected that deeper insights will result on supercontinuum generation caused by fs laser-induced filamentation.
You must log in to add comments.
In this Optics Letters article, by using mid-IR fs laser-induced filamentation in air, A. V. Mitrofanov et. al generate a multioctave high energy supercontinuum output stretching from 0.25 to 6.5 μm. By analyzing the on- and off-axis properties of the output with the three dimensional time-dependent generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation including the photoionization rate, the authors clearly reveal complex off-axial dynamics, where photoionization plays a key role in the enhancement of scattering and a blue shift of the drive field. They also find that this blue shift can be used to easily compress high peak power laser pulses in the mid-IR. With thorough understanding of the authors’ analysis, it is expected that deeper insights will result on supercontinuum generation caused by fs laser-induced filamentation.
Add Comment
You must log in to add comments.
Article Information
Angle-resolved multioctave supercontinua from mid-infrared laser filaments
A. V. Mitrofanov, A. A. Voronin, D. A. Sidorov-Biryukov, S. I. Mitryukovsky, M. V. Rozhko, A. Pugžlys, A. B. Fedotov, V. Ya. Panchenko, A. Baltuška, and A. M. Zheltikov
Opt. Lett. 41(15) 3479-3482 (2016) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF