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Super high power mid-infrared femtosecond light bullet

Nature Photonics volume 9, pages 543–548 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Mid-infrared ultrashort high energy laser sources are opening up new opportunities in science, including keV-class high harmonic generation and monoenergetic MeV-class proton acceleration. As new higher energy sources become available, potential applications for atmospheric propagation can dramatically grow to include stand-off detection, laser communications, shock-driven remote terahertz enhancement and extended long-lived thermal waveguides to transport high power microwave and radiofrequency waves. We reveal a new paradigm for long-range, low-loss, ultrahigh power ultrashort pulse propagation at mid-infrared wavelengths in the atmosphere. Before the onset of critical self-focusing, energy in the fundamental wave continually leaks into shock-driven spectrally broadened higher harmonics. A persistent near-invariant solitonic leading edge on the multi-terawatt pulse waveform transports most of the power over hundred-metre-long distances. Such light bullets are resistant to uncontrolled multiple filamentation and are expected to spark extensive research in optics, where the use of mid-infrared lasers is currently much under-utilized.

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Figure 1: Schematic representation of the long mid-IR filament.
Figure 3: Snapshots of a one-dimensional slice through the 24 fs/4 μm/177.2 mJ pulse at distances of 19 m, 30 m, 40 m and 50 m along the self-guided path.
Figure 4: Time-gated temporal and spectral components.
Figure 2: Plot of peak intensity and generated electrons per unit length for the 24 fs/4 μm/177.2 mJ wave packet, showing the initial collapse and subsequent regularization.
Figure 5: Filament power scaling.
Figure 6: Energy scaling of filaments.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI; grant no. FA9550-10-1-0561).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arizona Center for Mathematical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721-0094, Arizona, USA

    Paris Panagiotopoulos, Miroslav Kolesik & Jerome V. Moloney

  2. College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721-0094, Arizona, USA

    Paris Panagiotopoulos, Patrick Whalen, Miroslav Kolesik & Jerome V. Moloney

  3. Department of Mathematics, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721-0094, Arizona, USA

    Patrick Whalen & Jerome V. Moloney

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  1. Paris Panagiotopoulos
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the development and/or implementation of the concept. P.P., P.W. and M.K. performed the numerical simulations and J.V.M. supervised the research. All authors contributed to the discussion of the results and to the writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jerome V. Moloney.

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Panagiotopoulos, P., Whalen, P., Kolesik, M. et al. Super high power mid-infrared femtosecond light bullet. Nature Photon 9, 543–548 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.125

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