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Updated: Jun 3, 2026

Femtosecond Laser Filaments for Use in Sub-Diffraction-Limited Imaging and Remote Sensing
Published on: April 25, 2019
Plasma filament investigation by transverse optical interferometry and terahertz scattering
Sergey Bodrov1, Vladimir Bukin, Maxim Tsarev
1Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. bosbor@ufp.appl.sci-nnov.ru
Abstract:
Transverse plasma distribution with 10(17) cm(-3) maximum electron density and 150 μm transverse size in a plasma filament formed in air by an intense femtosecond laser pulse was measured by means of optical interferometry. Two orders of magnitude decay of the electron density within 2 ns was obtained by combined use of the interferometry and newly proposed terahertz scattering techniques. Excellent agreement was obtained between the measured plasma density evolution and theoretical calculation.

