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Updated: Jun 9, 2026

Direct Imaging of Laser-driven Ultrafast Molecular Rotation
Published on: February 4, 2017
Polarization rotation due to femtosecond filamentation in an atomic gas
Olga Kosareva1, Nikolay Panov, Vladimir Makarov
1International Laser Center & Faculty of Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. kosareva@physics.msu.ru
Abstract:
The linear-to-elliptical transformation of a 400 nm femtosecond-probe pulse in the birefringent filament in argon of an 800 nm linearly polarized femtosecond-pump pulse is studied numerically and experimentally. The rotation of the probe elliptical polarization is the largest in the high-intensity filament core. With propagation, the rotated radiation diffracts outward by the pump-produced plasma. The transmission of the analyzer crossing the probe's polarization is maximum at the pump-probe angle of 45 degrees and gives equal values for each pair of angles symmetrically situated at both sides of the maximum.
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