15 September 2002

Optics Communications 210 (2002) 329341 www.elsevier.com/locate/optcom

Interference of transverse rings in multilamentation of powerful femtosecond laser pulses in air

S.L. Chin a, S. Petit a, W. Liu a, A. Iwasaki a, M.-C. Nadeau a, V.P. Kandidov b, O.G. Kosareva b,*, K.Yu. Andrianov b
a

Centre dOptique, Photonique, et Laser (COPL) and Dept. de Physique, de Gnie Physique et dOptique, e Universit Laval, Que., Canada G1K 7P4 e b Physics Department, International Laser Center, Moscow State University, Moscow 119899, Russia Received 30 January 2002; received in revised form 28 June 2002; accepted 16 July 2002

Abstract We observe multiple laments and interference of their ring structures in the propagation of 14 mJ, 45 fs infrared laser pulse in air. We suggest a simple physical model describing the formation and the interference of rings as the result of superposition of the background eld of the whole beam and the elds that diverge from the laments due to the defocusing in the laser-produced plasma. The size and the number of maxima in the interference pattern depend on the position of the lament formation along the direction of propagation. The simulated picture of the ring structure interference is in qualitative agreement with the one obtained from the experiment. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PACS: 42.25.Hz; 42.65.Jx; 42.65.Re; 52.35.Mw; 32.80.Fb Keywords: Interference; Multiple lamentation; Self-focusing; Photoionization

1. Introduction Filamentation of powerful femtosecond laser pulses in air is now a subject of intense experimental and theoretical study. In the rst experiments [13] pulses generated by Ti:sapphire laser amplication systems were used with the duration 150230 fs and peak power 550 GW. In these experiments part of the pulse energy was concenCorresponding author. Fax: +709-59-393-113. E-mail address: kosareva@msuilc.ilc.msu.su (O.G. Kosareva).
*

trated in the narrow near-axis region with the diameter of the order of 100 lm and stayed localized there for propagation distances of several tens of meters. Filamentation was accompanied by the conical emission with continuum spectrum in the range 500800 nm [2,4]. Later [5] it was found that a white-light continuum generated in air by 2-TW 35 fs laser pulses at 800 nm extends at least from 300 nm to 4.5 lm. Generation of wideband spectral continuum is of considerable current interest in view of potential LIDAR applications [6,7]. Filamentation of powerful femtosecond laser pulses arises because of the joint eect of

0030-4018/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 3 0 - 4 0 1 8 ( 0 2 ) 0 1 8 0 8 - 4

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self-focusing due to Kerr nonlinearity of air and defocusing in the laser-produced plasma. In the course of propagation the intensity increase due to self-focusing is replaced by strong aberrational defocusing as soon as the ionization threshold of air is achieved. As a result, dynamic ring structure in the transverse intensity distribution is created. Formation of a ring structure in the propagation of intense subpicosecond laser pulses in gases was for the rst time reported in [8], where 0.9 ps and 90 fs pulses with the wavelength 620 nm were focused in xenon gas at a pressure of 50 Torr. At the output of the gas cell a beam prole with the ring created due to the ionization was observed. The disintegration of transverse intensity distribution into multiple rings was observed in the conditions of resonant interaction of a picosecond pulse with Ba and Cs vapor [9]. A detailed experimental and theoretical study of ring structure created in the course of lamentation was performed in [10]. In this experiment 320 and 350 fs pulses with the energy 75 and 85 mJ, respectively, were used. A beam with a diameter of 1 cm was focused by a lens with a focal length of 150 cm. For the registration of transverse uence distribution a silicate glass plate was inserted at various positions in the vicinity of the geometrical focus. The damage pattern created by the laser pulse on the glass plate showed formation of multiple concentric rings surrounding a wide near-axis part of the beam. The observation of rings in the lamentation of focused ultraviolet pulses (k 248 nm) with the duration 450 fs, incident energy 2 mJ and focusing length of the lens 9.5 m was performed in [11,12]. The appearance of ring patterns could be seen in the burn spots of the laser beam on UV photographic paper recorded at various distances along the propagation direction. It was found in the simulations [12] that at the stage of the lament formation the rings were merging inward to the beam center. After the lament formation the rings were travelling outward in agreement with the observations in the infrared pulse lamentation [10]. Theoretical investigation of transverse ring formation in the propagation of powerful femtoand picosecond laser pulses in gases was discussed in several publications. The author of [13] calcu-

lated the map of spectral blueshift in the transverse intensity rings of the pulse focused in argon at atmospheric pressure. Peak vacuum intensity of the pulse was 1015 1016 W=cm2 . In these conditions a local intensity minimum arises at the trailing part of the pulse due to the defocusing in the laser-produced plasma [14]. As the gas pressure increases up to 5 atm the contribution of plasma to the nonlinear refraction of the pulse increases. As a result multiple rings are formed in the transverse section of the pulse. In [15] it is demonstrated that multiple ring formation results from spatio-temporal instability of the radiation in the conditions of self-focusing and nontransient defocusing in the laser-produced plasma. The reason for dynamic instability is shown to be in the temporal dependence of the medium nonlinear response, i.e., dispersion of the nonlinearity. Formation of rings in the course of lamentation of infrared pulses in air was numerically studied in [10,16,17]. In [16] it was shown that formation of rings in the transverse section of the beam is caused by the temporal growth of the negative contribution to the refractive index on the beam axis. This negative contribution is associated with a growing number of free electrons on the beam axis. The ring structure in the transverse uence distribution was obtained in [17] without consideration of the group velocity dispersion in air. In [18,19] it was demonstrated that group velocity dispersion essentially aects the spatio-temporal transformation of the pulse in the course of lamentation. Due to dispersion, the intensity growth caused by self-focusing slows down and plasma-induced defocusing occurs at lower intensity on the beam axis. A close relation between the spatial rings in the intensity distribution and the conical emission accompanying lamentation has been studied in [19] in details. It was demonstrated that the spatio-temporal gradients of the phase of the electric eld complex amplitude cause strong broadening of the frequency-angular spectrum of the pulse and the generation of supercontinuum conical emission. In view of possible LIDAR applications of white light continuum, lamentation of pulses with terawatt peak power is of considerable current interest. Such peak power is several hundred times

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higher than the critical power for self-focusing in air of the pulse with 800 nm laser wavelength. Therefore, multiple laments are produced. Breakup of high power laser beam into multiple laments results from modulational instability of the light eld in the Kerr medium. In [20] at the initial stage of propagation the increase of the spatial nonuniformity in the beam intensity prole was observed. However, not all nonuniformities developed into the laments. Initial stage of lamentation in the presence of large-scale perturbations in the beam prole has been experimentally and theoretically studied in [21]. For femtosecond pulses propagating in air with peak power lying between 5 and 25 critical powers for self-focusing a breakup of the beam into two spots due to modulational instability was observed. Later in the propagation the two spots coalesced into one central lobe and a single lament was formed. Dynamics of multilamentation process of the pulse with initial spatial modulation of the electric eld was numerically studied in [22]. A spatiotemporal picture of multilamentation reproduces initial beam breakup due to modulational instability, regularization of collapsing laments via plasma defocusing, recurrement and merging of laments in the course of propagation. These collapse events lead to the formation of optical turbulence. The dominant regularizing mechanism of this process is defocusing in the laser-produced plasma. Formation of laments in the conditions of natural atmospheric turbulence was studied in [23]. Refractive index uctuations in the turbulent air were shown to be the seed for the development of modulational instability in the laser pulse with peak power larger than the critical power for selffocusing. As a result, laments in the turbulent air experience random wandering in the plane perpendicular to the propagation direction. In this paper we study the formation of several laments in the pulse with essentially nonmonotonic distribution of uence in the transverse section. We have observed experimentally and conrmed this observation numerically that laments are created at dierent distances from the laser system output. We present the results on the observation of ring structures arising from several laments produced by 0.3 TW laser pulse at

800 nm. The interference of transverse rings created by two closely spaced laments is registered and a simple physical model is suggested that clearly explains the observed phenomenon.

2. Experimental setup and initial beam characteristics The experiment was performed with a brand new commercial (Spectra Physics) Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse-amplication laser system that is able to emit three beams simultaneously. We used the most powerful channel of this laser system that consists of a MaiTai oscillator, stretcher, regenerative amplier, pulse slicer, four pass amplier with 16 mm sapphire rod and vacuum compressor. The output pulse was at 800 nm with the duration 45 fs FWHM and maximum energy 130 mJ. The repetition rate was 10 Hz. The energy of the pulse was controlled by a half-wave plate and a polarizer located before the amplier. The pulses with the energy in the range 740 mJ (with the corresponding peak powers 0.150.8 TW) were studied. The laser system at the time of this experiment was not yet optimized, hence the double spot spatial distribution was created in the pulse. This was just the right condition to investigate the multiple laments and their interference. The beam was sent into a long hallway by means of alignment optics and a periscope (Fig. 1). In order to decrease the inuence of turbulence and self-focusing before launching the pulse into the hallway, the propagation path was arranged inside a stainless steel pipeline with a length of about 10 m and a diameter of about 20 cm. The optical pipeline was constructed from separate sections. The pipeline was thoroughly cleaned chemically; and was linked directly onto the vacuum compressor. The output CaF2 window was 12.5 cm in diameter and 1 cm thick. The whole system (vacuum compressor and pipeline) was rst pumped down by an oil free mechanical pump. It was then lled up with He up to 1 atmospheric pressure. After coming out from the stainless steel pipeline and the periscope, the beam was directed through connected sections of carton pipes of

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Fig. 1. Scheme of the experiment. 1 laser system, 2 steel pipeline with a length of about 10 m, 3 output window to the hallway, 4,5 periscope mirrors, 6 carton pipes with 20 cm diameter, 7 registration screen, 8 CCD camera, 9 computer.

about 20 cm in diameter in order to minimize air turbulence. The total length of the carton pipes was about 96 m while the bulk of our measurement was done at 87 m. Fluence distribution in the transverse beam section was reproduced on the screen and imaged onto a CCD camera with a dynamic range of 256 grades. Neutral density lters were used in order to measure the uence distribution in dierent ranges: in the lament, where the uence takes its maximum, or in the beam background, where the uence is several orders of magnitude lower than in the lament. Before each series of measurements the transverse beam size was calibrated with a scale grid that was put on the screen and imaged onto the CCD camera. The initial beam shape was elliptical and its transverse size at e1 uence level was 2.0 cm in one dimension and 1.5 cm in the other dimension. Spatial distribution of uence F x; y was essentially nonunimodal and this nonunimodal structure was not a function of the pulse energy. Typical distributions F x; y for the pulses with the energy 550 mJ are shown in Fig. 2. Fluence distribution F x; y can be divided into two largescale spatial regions 1 and 2 with their own maxima maxfF1 g and maxfF2 g, respectively. In order to see the uence distribution in these two regions better we show the cross-section of the uence distribution F c along the line CC 0 for each pulse energy under discussion. The line CC 0 joints two maxima max{F1 } and max{F2 }. The line DD0 , which is perpendicular to the line CC 0 and crosses it in the local minimum between the maxima

Fig. 2. Experimentally measured transverse uence distributions F x; y and uence proles F c along the line CC 0 at the laser system output z 0. The distributions F x; y and F c are normalized to the maximum of uence in the output beam z 0. Characteristic spatial regions with the two local maxima of uence distribution are marked by the numbers 1 and 2. The ratio W1;2 =W shows relative amount of energy in these regions.

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max{F1 } and max{F2 }, can be considered as the boundary between the regions 1 and 2. The values of the maxima max{F1 } and max{F2 } are close to each other and the dierence between them does not exceed 1015% of the largest maximum. However, the amount of energy in the regions 1 and 2 is essentially dierent. To dene the relative amount of energy W1 =W or W2 =W contained in each region we used the following estimate: R F x; y dx dy W1;2 R ; 1 R 1;2 W F x; y dx dy 1 where R1;2 are the subareas in the transverse beam section separated by the line DD0 and W is the total energy. For the series of measurements performed for dierent laser energies W1 =W 0:60:7; W2 =W 0:30:4. In addition to large-scale uctuations in the laser energy, the size of which corresponds to the regions 1 and 2, each region contains small-scale uctuations (Fig. 2, cross sections along the line CC 0 ). Small-scale structure in the distribution

F x; y varied from shot to shot. However, the geometric position of the regions 1 and 2 remained unchanged. Therefore, for the pulses with the same total energy the picture of the lament formation depended only on the ratio between W1 and W2 .

3. Filament formation Measurements of uence F x; y were performed at dierent laser energies W at a distance z 87 m dened by the length of the carton pipeline. Typical uence distributions and uence cross-section F c are shown in Fig. 3. For an energy of W 7 mJ spatial localization of energy due to Kerr self-focusing in the regions 1 and 2 only starts to develop at a distance of measurements (Fig. 3(a)). In the 10 mJ pulse selffocusing leads to the formation of two maxima with high uence value (Fig. 3(b)). The rst region contains more energy and self-focuses into the maximum that is higher and narrower than the maximum created in the second region. This

Fig. 3. Experimentally measured transverse uence distributions F x; y and uence proles F c for dierent input laser pulse energies: (a) 7, (b) 10, (c) 14 mJ. Propagation distance z 87 m. The distributions F x; y and F c are normalized to the maximum of uence obtained at z 87 m for the corresponding pulse energy.

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is the evidence for the fact that in the region 1 we have a developed lament at a distance of 87 m while in region 2 the lament development is still underway. For an energy of W 14 mJ the distribution of uence reveals two narrow and intense maxima that correspond to the two developed laments (Fig. 3(c)). The peak value of uence, the width, and the amount of energy are nearly the same for both laments. Stabilization of the parameters for the developed laments is associated with the defocusing of the radiation in the laser-produced plasma. This phenomenon of intensity clamping in the course of lamentation was recently considered in gases [24,25] and condensed matter [26]. The redistribution of uence at z 87 m shown in Fig. 3 demonstrates the process of successive formation of laments. Their development may be considered independently in each of the regions 1 and 2. Indeed, the value of the peak power P1;2 in each region can be calculated from the amount of energy W1;2 under the assumption of Gaussian pulse shape 2 Et E0 exp t2 =2s2 ; 0 where s0 is half of the pulse duration at e1 intensity level. According to Eq. (2) the peak power p is P1=2 W1=2 = ps0 . For the pulse duration of 45 fs FWHM the value s0 is equal to 27 fs. If the total energy of the pulse is 7 mJ then P1 % 90100 GW in the rst region and P2 % 4060 GW in the second region. The values P1 and P2 exceed the critical power for self-focusing in air Pcr . To nd the starting position of the lament, we, according to the moving focus model [27], consider the self-focusing distance for the central slice of the pulse [28] znf1;2 0:367ka2 1;2
P1;2 =Pcr 1=2 0:852

takes place and we cannot apply Eq. (3) for the description of lamentation at z > znf . The value Pcr is dened by the third-order nonlinearity of neutral air molecules that has instant electronic contribution and delayed contribution due to the stimulated Raman scattering on rotational transitions of oxygen and nitrogen molecules. The time of the delayed cubic nonlinear response is of the order of 1013 s and is comparable to the pulse duration. Therefore, the eective critical power Pcr depends on the interaction time between the pulse and air. The nonlinear contribution to the refractive index in air Dnnl can be written in the form [18]: 8 9 Z t  0 2 0 = 1 < H t t0  Et  dt ; Dnnl t n2 j Etj2 ; 2 : 1 4 where H t steptX2 exp fCt=2gsinKt=K is the response function, K2 X2 C2 =4, X 20.6 THz, C 26 THz, n2 is the nonlinear refractive index coecient for long pulses. Using Eq. (4) we can introduce the eective nonlinear refractive index coecient n t for the temporal 2 slice Et through the expression Dnnl t n tj Etj : 2
2

where a1;2 is the radius of the regions 1, 2, respectively, estimated at e1 level of the measured uence distribution and Pcr is the eective value of the critical power for self-focusing. The moving focus model, which gives us the nonlinear focus position (3), is well established only in the initial stage of the lament formation. After the lament is formed, the nonlinear refraction in the plasma

For the Gaussian pulse with 2s0 54 fs the coefcient n t for the central slice with t 0 is 2 n 0 0:6n2 . The eective critical power for self2 focusing Pcr t may be estimated as Pcr t Pcr n2 =n2 t, where Pcr is the critical power for a long pulse. If Pcr 6 GW [3] then the eective critical power for the central slice of the pulse used in this experiment is Pcr 0 11:3 GW. By using the estimates for the eective critical power Pcr 0, the peak powers P1 , P2 , and taking the radii as a1 a2 0:75 cm, we can nd the distances of the independent lament formation znf1 and znf2 in the two regions 1 and 2 from Eq. (3). From this analysis we can conclude that in the 7 and 10 mJ pulses only one lament should be formed at the distance of measurements z 87 m, while in the 14 mJ pulse two laments should be formed at the same distance z 87 m. This is in agreement with experimentally registered trans-

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verse uence distribution for 10 and 14 mJ pulses (Figs. 3(b) and (c)). In order to study successive formation of laments in details, we have numerically simulated the propagation of the pulse with the transverse uence distribution F x; y measured in the experiment. By the initial stage of the lament formation we mean the growth of the peak pulse intensity up to the photoionization threshold. In contrast to the initial stage of lamentation, in the developed lament there exists severe nonstationary defocusing in the laser-produced plasma. At the initial stage of lamentation the nonlinear defocusing in the plasma may be neglected [23]. Material dispersion in air does not essentially aect the propagation until the pulse is self-steepened near the nonlinear focus. For the propagation inside the carton pipes the turbulent refractive index uctuations in air have a minor eect on the formation of laments from the beam with strong inhomogeneities in the initial uence prole. Thus, the initial stage of the lament formation is completely dened by the nonlinear contribution to the refractive index given by Eq. (5) with the coecient n t. 2 The complex amplitude of the electric eld E is described by the nonlinear Schrdinger equao tion oE 2 D? E 2k0 n tj Ej2 E: 2ik0 6 2 oz Under the assumption of a Gaussian pulse shape at z 0, the initial distribution of the electric eld is given by r & ' 8p ik0 x2 y 2 Ex; y; 0; t I0 F x; y exp c 2Rf & ' t2 exp 2 ; 7 2s0 where F x; y is the experimentally measured uence distribution at the laser system output, radius Rf characterizes initial wavefront curvature. The laser eld intensity I is expressed through the c complex amplitude E as I 8p j Ej2 . The parameter I0 is calculated from the condition that the total pulse energy should be equal to the value W obtained in the experiment

0 I0 W @

& F x; y exp

t2 2 s0

'

11 dx dy dtA : 8

In the simulations we used rectangular grid in the transverse plane XOY that allows us to adequately reproduce the electric eld Ex; y corresponding to the experimentally obtained uence F x; y (Fig. 2). The radius of the wavefront curvature Rf (see Eq. (7)) of the initial beam was not measured in the experiment, therefore its value is a free parameter in the simulations. Choosing a weakly divergent initial beam with the defocusing radius Rf 290 m, we have obtained the agreement between the simulated and experimentally obtained distance of the lament separation in x; y plane. We have simulated the propagation of the most powerful slice of the pulse that denes the onset of the lament. Fig. 4 shows intensity distributions Icomp x; y and intensity proles Icomp c for the pulses with the input energies 10 mJ (Fig. 4(a)) and 14 mJ (Fig. 4(b)) at several distances z. The simulated intensity distributions demonstrate that the laments are built up independently in each spatial region with increasing distance z (Fig. 4). At the distance z 87 m a pulse with W 10 mJ reveals high and narrow maximum corresponding to the lament in the rst spatial region (Fig. 4(a)). In contrast, intensity maximum in the second region is not large that is the evidence for the fact that the second lament is at the early stage of its development. Spatial intensity distributions Icomp x; y and proles Icomp c calculated at z 87 m are close to the uence distributions F x; y and proles F c measured at the same distance (compare Figs. 3(b) and 4(a)). For an energy of W 14 mJ already at z 50 m there exist two maxima with nearly the same peak value (Fig. 4(b)). However, at z 67 m we observe the developed lament only in the rst spatial region. The lament corresponding to the second spatial region will be formed later in the propagation. With this model (Eq. (6)) we are not

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Fig. 4. Simulated spatial intensity distributions Icomp x; y and proles Icomp c for the central slice of the pulse with dierent input energy: (a) 10 mJ, (b) 14 mJ. Intensities Icomp x; y and Icomp c are normalized to the peak intensity of the input pulse given by Eq. (7).

able to follow further growth of the second lament, because in this range of distances the rst lament is already developed and plasma-induced defocusing should be taken into account. Since the intensity grows very fast due to the self-focusing, the second lament should be developed before z 87 m. Therefore, we can state that at z 87 m in the 14 mJ pulse we have two laments, one of which has been formed much earlier in the propagation and the other has been formed near the distance of measurements.

4. Interference of ring structures Strong defocusing of the light eld in the laser plasma causes the formation of rings in the transverse uence distribution. The value of uence in the ring structure may be several orders of magnitude lower than in the peak of the lament. Therefore, for experimental observation of rings surrounding the lament we essentially reduced the optical width of neutral density lters used in the measurements described in Sections 2 and 3

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(Fig. 1). At each laser shot we registered 56 rings surrounding a bright spot created by a lament. The diameter of the outer ring was of the order of the input laser beam size. In a 14-mJ pulse we observed two developed laments at z 87 m (see Section 3 for the details) and registered the interference of the ring structures produced by these two laments (Figs. 5(a) and (b)). Rings from the lament in the spatial region 1 have a diameter of 1.52 cm and cover the second lament. Regular ring structure of the rst lament is destroyed near the second lament. Rays of maxima in the uence distributions diverge from the second lament center. The central maximum lies on the line connecting the two laments. At an angle to this line two, four or more maxima can be observed. This interference picture is the evidence of the fact that two coherent light elds, which produce the ring structures around the laments, overlap

one another. Below we present a simple physical model that explains the formation of ring structures and their interference in the course of lamentation. In this model we consider the spatial distribution of the light eld in the pulse with two developed laments. Due to the defocusing in the plasma the developed lament creates around itself a divergent eld, the intensity of which is much lower than the maximum lament intensity. The distribution of the light eld outside the two laments may be represented as a superposition of the axially symmetric elds Efil 1 r, Efil 2 r and the eld of the background Ebgr r (Fig. 6(a)). The elds Efil 1 r and Efil 2 r describe the radiation that diverges from the laments with the centers r 0 and r r2 , respectively. At the same time the elds Efil 1;2 r cannot be used for the description of the high-intensity peak of the lament.

Fig. 5. Typical pictures of the interference of ring structures produced by two developed laments at z 87 m in a 14 mJ pulse. (a), (b) Fluence distributions obtained from the experiment. In (b) the second lament was formed earlier in the propagation than in (a). (c), (d) Intensity distributions obtained in the simulations are plotted in the relative units. The rst lament radius d1 % 12 mm, the size of the background b % 15 mm, the ratio of the eld amplitudes is jE1 j=jE0 j jE2 j=jE0 j 10. The radius of the second lament is (c) d2 % 1:8 mm and (d) d2 % 3:25 mm.

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Fig. 6. (a) Wavefronts and wave vectors of the elds that form ring structures in the course of lamentation. (b) Proles of the absolute values of elds Efil 1;2 and Ebgr along the line CC 0 that connects the centers of the two laments. The eld Efil 1 (solid curve) is the divergent eld of the rst lament located at r 0, the eld Efil 2 (crosses) is the divergent eld of the second lament located at r r2 , the eld Ebgr (squares) characterizes the background. The amplitude of the background is jE0 j 1.

If the lamentation starts from a collimated beam then the wavefront of the eld Ebgr r may be considered to be plane or weakly divergent due to the diraction. Analysis of the experimental data (Figs. 5(a) and (b)) shows that the increment Dr of the ring radius, i.e., the width of the interference strips, is not changing with increasing radial coordinate r. Such interference picture can arise in the case of superposition of the background light eld with plane wavefront and divergent eld of the lament, the wavefront of which is the surface of a cone. The axis of the cone coincides with the lament (Fig. 6(a)). The angle a between the cone surface and the plane wavefront of the background can be expressed through the increment Dr of the ring radius k ; 9 Dr This expression is valid for a ( 1. The value Dr can be estimated from the experimentally obtained ring patterns (Figs. 5(a) and (b)) as Dr % 1:5 mm. According to Eq. (9) a % 0:03. a

The divergent light eld coming from the lament produces the angular dependence of the conical emission. Indeed, we can observe the ring structure surrounding the lament only in the vicinity of the laser wavelength of 800 nm, because the low-intensity background eld does not have the frequency components shifted into the visible range. From the experimental data [4] we know the conical emission angle of 0.03 at the wavelength 750 nm. This is in agreement with the lament eld divergence angle a estimation based on the spacing of the rings generated in the vicinity of 800 nm (see Eq. (9)). Thus, we can assume that the divergent eld coming from lament is responsible for both the ring structure formation and the conical emission accompanying the lament. The transverse intensity distribution in the divergent elds of laments Ifil 1;2 r is assumed to be supergaussian with the maximum on the axis of the corresponding lament. The background eld Ibgr r is assumed to be supergaussian with the maximum on the beam axis. Thus, the complex amplitudes of the divergent electric elds Efil 1;2 r and the background eld Ebgr r can be represented in the form: ( ) jrj8 Efil 1 r E1 exp 8 exp f ik1? rg 2d1 exp f ik0 zg; ( Efil 2 r E2 exp jr r2 j8 8 2d2 ) 10

exp f ik2? r r2 g exp f ik0 zg; 11 ( Ebgr r E0 exp

8 jrj 2b8

) exp f ik0 zg; 12

where the center of the lament 1 coincides with the beam axis. The size d1 of the divergent electric eld Efil 1 coming from the rst lament is of the order of the background size b and larger than the size d2 of the eld coming from the second lament Efil 2 (Fig. 6(b)). In the case when the laments are not formed simultaneously, it is natural to assume that

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the divergent eld of the lament developed early in the propagation is of the order of the background and larger than the divergent eld Efil 2 of the newly formed lament. Indeed, the eect of plasma defocusing on the eld coming from the lament accumulates with distance. In our case the characteristic size of the rst lament eld was d1 % 12 mm, the size of the second lament eld varied from d2 % 1:8 mm to d2 % 3:25 mm, the size of the background was b % 15 mm and the distance between the lament centers was r2 8:6 mm. It is important that the radii d1 and d2 are not the radii of the laments themselves, but the radii of the divergent elds produced by the laments. Thus, these sizes characterize the radii of the outer rings created by the laments at a certain distance z. Transverse components of the wave vectors k1? and k2? are responsible for the divergence of the elds Efil 1;2 (Fig. 6(a)). Since both Efil 1 and Efil 2 are the elds of the developed laments with the established values of the peak intensity and plasma density the absolute values jk1? j and jk2? j may be assumed to be equal jk1? j jk2? j k0 a; 13

distributions with the centers located at r 0, r r2 and the maximum intensity values 20Ifil 1 r and 20Ifil 2 r, respectively. These Gaussian distributions were added to the total intensity of the three elds (10)(12)
Itotal r jEtotal r Etotal rj;

14 15

where Etotal r Efil1 r Efil2 r Ebgr r: As a result, in the center of the simulated laments two bright spots at r 0, r r2 are clearly pronounced (Figs. 5(c) and (d)), that is in agreement with the experimental data (Figs. 5(a) and (b)). According to our estimates, the lament in the rst spatial region of a 14 mJ pulse is formed at z % 50 m. Therefore, it has a developed ring structure with the outer ring size of the order of the input beam size. The second lament is formed between 69 and 84 m that is much closer to the distance of measurements z 87 m. The ring structure of the second lament is therefore much smaller than the ring structure of the rst lament. In Figs. 5(b) and (d) the area of the interference of the two ring structures is larger than in Figs. 5(a) and (c). Up to ten maxima coming from the second lament center are observed in both experiment and simulation. The larger area of the interference is associated with the larger characteristic size of the second divergent eld Efil 2 . A wider ring structure of the second lament in Fig. 5(b) is the evidence for the fact that this lament has been formed earlier in the propagation than a similar lament shown in Fig. 5(a). Indeed, a relative amount of energy in the spatial regions 1 and 2 can vary from shot to shot within 0.60.7 and 0.30.4 of the total pulse energy, respectively (see Section 2). According to the Eq. (3) this energy variation results in the variation of the lament formation distance that changes from z 48 to z 52 m for the rst lament and from z 69 to z 84 m for the second lament. At the position of measurements z 87 m the variation 4852 m does not essentially aect the spatial distribution of the electric eld produced by the rst lament, while the variation 6984 m can strongly change the spatial eld distribution coming from the sec-

where the angle a % 0:03 is given by Eq. (9). Substituting Eq. (9) into Eq. (13), we have jk1? j jk2? j 2p=Dr % 41:9 cm1 . For the developed laments the amplitudes E1 and E2 of the electric elds Efil 1;2 are of the same order of magnitude and much larger than the amplitude E0 of the background (Fig. 6(b)). Intensity distribution obtained from the sum of the three elds (10)(12) is shown in Figs. 5(c) and (d) for two dierent sizes of the second lament d2 . Large concentric rings with the center on the beam axis result from the interference of the divergent eld of the rst lament Efil 1 and the eld of the background Ebgr . Three clearly pronounced maxima coming from the second lament center in Figs. 5(a) and (c) originate from the interference of the large ring structure with the center on the beam axis and the smaller ring structure produced by the second lament. The three elds (10)(12) do not model highintensity peak of the two laments. To avoid this problem we added two narrow Gaussian intensity

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ond lament. Therefore, it is likely to assume that in the laser shot, the uence distribution of which is shown in Fig. 5(a), the second lament has been formed very recently in the propagation, i.e., at a distance close to z % 84 m. A larger area of interference in the laser shot shown in Fig. 5(b) allows us to conclude that the second lament was formed earlier in the propagation and close to z % 69 m. Thus, the laments formed in the course of propagation of powerful femtosecond laser pulses in air may produce interference patterns of their ring structures. The area of the interference pattern and the number of maxima depend on the propagation distances at which these laments have been created. Observation of the interference picture shows the coherence of the light eld in the two laments. It was demonstrated in (see, for example, [1,2,4,6]) that the lament in air is a source of white light, in particular, the extended blue part of the supercontinuum originates from the rings surrounding the lament [19]. Multiple laments are independent sources of supercontinuum [29]. Since the light elds in two laments are coherent, we can assume that supercontinuum spectra produced by several laments in one laser pulse are also coherent. This means that in the conditions of multiple lamentation we have a white light laser pulse studied in [30] for a single lament regime.

5. Conclusions We have studied lamentation of powerful femtosecond laser pulses with essentially nonunimodal transverse uence distribution. The beam at the laser system output contained two distinct spatial regions. The peak power of each region exceeded the critical power for self-focusing in air. As the energy of a 45 fs pulse increased from 10 to 40 mJ the number of laments observed at a distance of 87 m was increasing. Filaments from dierent spatial regions were formed at dierent distances from the laser system output. The larger was the energy in the beam spatial region the shorter was the formation distance.

In a theoretical study of ultrashort pulse lamentation we took into account a delayed response of the Kerr nonlinearity by introducing the eective nonlinear refractive-index coecient n t 2 and the corresponding critical power for self-fo cusing in air Pcr t for the slice the nonlinear transformation of which depends on the interaction time between the radiation and the air. To analytically estimate the lament formation distance we assumed that each spatial region self-focused independently. The lament formation distance was estimated as the self-focusing distance in the medium with the critical power equal two the Pcr 0 corresponding to the central slice of the pulse. We simulated the initial stage of the pulse lamentation using the nonlinear Schrdinger equao tion with the eective nonlinear refractive-index coecient n t. The laser beam shape at z 0 was 2 chosen to be the one measured in the experiment. Initial stage of the lamentation describes the intensity increase up to the ionization threshold in air. As the ionization threshold is reached, stabilization of the lament parameters (such as peak intensity and transverse size) takes place and the ring structure is formed. In the course of initial self-focusing spatial intensity distribution in the central slice of the pulse denes the transverse uence distribution in the whole pulse. Numerical simulations reproduce successive formation of laments in a 45 fs pulse with the energy ranging from 10 to 14 mJ. The obtained process of the lament formation from the nonunimodal beam is in good agreement with the experimental data. We have observed the eect of interference of the ring structures produced by several laments. Regular system of rings surrounding a lament is distorted in the vicinity of another lament. A system of interference maxima is created with the main maximum located on the line connecting the lament centers. Other maxima form divergent rays that are symmetric relative to the central maximum. We suggest a simple physical model describing lament ring structures and their interference as the result of superposition of the background eld and the elds that diverge from laments due to the defocusing in the plasma. The simulated picture of the transverse ring structure

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interference is in qualitative agreement with the one obtained from the experiment. Observation of the interference picture produced by two laments allows us to predict the coherence of supercontinuum spectra generated by multiple laments. More experimental work and simulations are needed to study the physics of supercontinuum generation in the course of multiple lament formation. Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the nancial support from the NATO Linkage Grant, No. PST.CLG. 976981. V.P. Kandidov, O.G. Kosareva, K.Yu. Andrianov would like to thank the nancial support from the Russian Fund of Fundamental Research, Grant No. 00-02-17497. S.L. Chin was supported by the NSERC, Canada Research Chair, Canadian Institute of Photonics Innovation (CIPI), DREV, le Fonds FCAR and Canada Foundation for Innovation. We appreciate the technical help of Bruno Ferland and Mario Martin. References
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