Search

High-power femtosecond laser radiation propagates nonlinearly in air exhibiting pulse self-focusing and strong multiphoton medium ionization, which leads to the spatial fragmentation of laser pulse into highly-localized light channels usually called the filaments. The filaments are characterized by high optical intensity, reduced (even zero) angular spreading and can contain laser plasma or be plasmaless (postfilaments). The presence of optical turbulence on the propagation path dramatically changes pulse filamentation dynamics and in some cases causes pulse fragmentation enhancement and collapse arrest. For the first time to our knowledge, we experimentally and theoretically investigate the transverse profile of Ti:sapphire femtosecond laser radiation nonlinearly propagating a 65 m air path to the region of postfilament evolution after passing through an artificial localized air turbulence. We show that when a turbulent layer is placed before the filamentation region, the average number of high-intensive local fluence maxima ("hot points") in pulse profile as well as their sizes grow as the turbulence strength increases, and then saturates at some levels. On the contrary, the deposition of a turbulent screen within the filamentation region has almost no effect on both the number and the average diameter of the postfilaments.