Free-Space Nonlinear Beam Combining for High Intensity Projection

The controlled interaction of two high intensity beams opens new degrees of freedom for manipulating electromagnetic waves in air. The growing number of applications for laser filaments requires fine control of their formation and propagation. We demonstrate, experimentally and theoretically, that the attraction and fusion of two parallel ultrashort beams with initial powers below the critical value (70% P _critical), in the regime where the non-linear optical characteristics of the medium become dominant, enable the eventual formation of a filament downstream. Filament formation is delayed to a predetermined distance in space, defined by the initial separation between the centroids, while still enabling filaments with controllable properties as if formed from a single above-critical power beam. This is confirmed by experimental and theoretical evidence of filament formation such as the individual beam profiles and the supercontinuum emission spectra associated with this interaction.