Triggering, guiding and deviation of long air spark discharges with femtosecond laser filament

International audienceIn the perspective of the laser lightning rod, the ability of femtosecond filaments to trigger and to guide large scale discharges has been studied for several years. The present paper reports recent experimental results showing for the first time that filaments are able not only to trigger and guide but also to divert an electric discharge from its normal path. Laser filaments are also able to divert the spark without contact between laser and electrodes at large distance from the laser. A comparison between negative and positive discharge polarities also reveals important discrepancies in the guiding mechanism

Comprehensive formulation of the temperature dependent dispersion of optical materials; illustration with the case of temperature tuning of a mid-IR HgGa2S4 OPO

International audienceThe temperature dependence of refractive indices of optical materials is characterized in this work by what we call their normalized thermo-optic coefficients. These ones are determined experimentally through interferometric measurements of thermal expansion, and changes in optical thickness at a few laser wavelengths as function of temperature. A suitable vectorial formalism applied to these data allows predicting the thermal evolution of the refractive index all over the useful range of transparency. The validity and reliability of our methodology is demonstrated through temperature tuning of a mid-IR HgGa2S4 OPO, pumped at 1.0642 μm by a Nd:YAG laser. Measured thermal variation of both signal and idler wavelengths agrees very well with the predicted one