Dynamics of filament formation in a Kerr medium

We have studied the large-scale beam breakup and filamentation of femtosecond pulses in a Kerr medium. We have experimentally monitored the formation of stable light filaments, conical emission, and interactions between filaments. Three major stages lead to the formation of stable light filaments: First the beam breaks up into a pattern of connected lines (constellation), then filaments form on the constellations, and finally the filaments release a fraction of their energy through conical emission. We observed a phase transition to a faster filamentation rate at the onset of conical emission. We attribute this to the interaction of conical emissions with the constellation which creates additional filaments. Numerical simulations show good agreement with the experimental results

Imaging of Alignment, Deformation and Dissociation of CS2 Molecules using Ultrafast Electron Diffraction

Imaging the structure of molecules in transient excited states remains a challenge due to the extreme requirements for spatial and temporal resolution. Ultrafast electron diffraction from aligned molecules (UEDAM) provides atomic resolution and allows for the retrieval of structural information without the need to rely on theoretical models. Here we use UEDAM and femtosecond laser mass spectrometry (FLMS) to investigate the dynamics in carbon disulfide (CS2) following the interaction with an intense femtosecond laser pulse. We have retrieved images of ground state and excited molecules with 0.03 {\AA} precision. We have observed that the degree of alignment reaches an upper limit at laser intensities below the ionization threshold, and found evidence of structural deformation, dissociation, and ionization at higher laser intensities

Holographic capture of femtosecond pulse propagation

We have implemented a holographic system to study the propagation of femtosecond laser pulses with high temporal (150 fs) and spatial resolutions (4 µm). The phase information in the holograms allows us to reconstruct both positive and negative index changes due to the Kerr nonlinearity (positive) and plasma formation (negative), and to reconstruct three-dimensional structure. Dramatic differences were observed in the interaction of focused femtosecond pulses with air, water, and carbon disulfide. The air becomes ionized in the focal region, while in water long plasma filaments appear before the light reaches a tight focus. In contrast, in carbon disulfide the optical beam breaks up into multiple filaments but no plasma is measured. We explain these different propagation regimes in terms of the different nonlinear material properties

Nonlinearity Management in Optics: Experiment, Theory, and Simulation

We conduct an experimental investigation of nonlinearity management in optics using femtosecond pulses and layered Kerr media consisting of glass and air. By examining the propagation properties over several diffraction lengths, we show that wave collapse can be prevented. We corroborate these experimental results with numerical simulations of the (2+1)-dimensional focusing cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation with piecewise constant coefficients and a theoretical analysis of this setting using a moment method

Holographic recording of fast events on a CCD camera

We report on holographic recording of nanosecond events on a conventional CCD camera. Three frames of an air-discharge event, with resolution of 5.9 ns and frame interval of 12 ns, are recorded in a single CCD frame. Each individual frame is reconstructed by digital filtering of the CCD frame, since successively recorded holograms are centered at different carrier frequencies in the spatial frequency domain

Holographic recording of laser-induced plasma

We report on a holographic probing technique that allows for measurement of free-electron distribution with fine spatial detail. Plasma is generated by focusing a femtosecond pulse in air. We also demonstrate the capability of the holographic technique of capturing the time evolution of the plasma-generation process

Femtosecond holography

We present a holographic recording technique with 150 femtosecond time resolution. This technique allows us to capture either a single hologram with fine spatial resolution (4 micrometers), or a time-sequence of multiple holograms with reduced spatial resolution in a single-shot experiment, while preserving amplitude and phase information. The time resolution and the frame rate are limited only by the duration of the laser pulses. The holograms are recorded on a CCD camera and digitally reconstructed. We have used the technique to study the nonlinear propagation of high energy femtosecond pulses through liquids. We have observed dramatic differences in the pulse propagation characteristics depending on the strength of the nonlinear coefficient of the material and it's time response. The fine spatial resolution allows us to zoom in and visualize the spatial profile of the pulses breaking up into multiple filaments while the phase recovered from the holograms helps us identify the nonlinear index changes in the material. We have measured both positive and negative index changes. Very fast positive index changes are generally attributable to the Kerr nonlinearity. The negative index changes can be caused by electron plasma generated by multiphoton absorption

Emergence of order, self-organization and instabilities in a 1-D array of solitons

The paper reports on the generation of spatial solitons with carbon disulfide (CS_2) as the nonlinear material, which has a critical power of 190 kW for the laser wavelength of 800 nm. A 150-femtosecond pulse with a maximum energy of 1 mJ is also used. Each pulse from the laser is split into pump and probe pulses. The pump pulse is focused into a line (using a cylindrical lens) at the entrance face of a 10 mm glass cell filled with CS_2

Nonlinear Signal Processing

This paper studies the propagation of femtosecond pulses in a Kerr medium both experimentally and numerically. This work also investigates the similarities between the propagation of light pulses in a Kerr medium and the evolution of fluid dynamical systems, and proposes the use of an optical system to simulate fluid dynamics