Filamentation of ultrashort laser pulses in the atmosphere offers unique
opportunities for long-range transmission of high-power laser radiation and
standoff detection. With the critical power of self-focusing scaling as the
laser wavelength squared, the quest for longer-wavelength drivers, which would
radically increase the peak power and, hence, the laser energy in a single
filament, has been ongoing over two decades, during which time the available
laser sources limited filamentation experiments in the atmosphere to the
near-infrared and visible ranges. Here, we demonstrate filamentation of
ultrashort mid-infrared pulses in the atmosphere for the first time. We show
that, with the spectrum of a femtosecond laser driver centered at 3.9 um, right
at the edge of the atmospheric transmission window, radiation energies above 20
mJ and peak powers in excess of 200 GW can be transmitted through the
atmosphere in a single filament. Our studies reveal unique properties of
mid-infrared filaments, where the generation of powerful mid-infrared
supercontinuum is accompanied by unusual scenarios of optical harmonic
generation, giving rise to remarkably broad radiation spectra, stretching from
the visible to the mid-infrared
