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Filament-induced birefringence in Argon

Filament-induced birefringence in Argon

Authors :
Yannick Petit
Pierre Béjot
Luigi Bonacina
Jérôme Kasparian
Jean-Pierre Wolf
Michel Moret
Source :
Laser Physics, Vol. 19, No 2 (2009) pp. 336-341
Publication Year :
2009
Publisher :
Pleiades Publishing Ltd, 2009.

Abstract

We demonstrate that a driving ultrashort laser pulse undergoing filamentation can induce a remarkably large birefringence in Argon, resulting in an ultrafast “half-wave plate” for a copropagating non-filamenting probe beam. Such femtosecond birefringence, which originates from the difference between the nonlinear refractive indices induced by the filament on the axes parallel and orthogonal to its own polarization, opens the way to potential ultrafast Kerr-gates whose ultimate time-duration is only restricted by the duration of the driving pulse. We also show that the induced birefringence is transversely inhomogeneous, resulting from to the intensity profile of the driving pulse.

Details

ISSN :
15556611 and 1054660X
Volume :
19
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Laser Physics
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....0db0d441a0dfb2046889101b223ab316
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1134/s1054660x09020273