Experimental studies of laser guiding in plasma channels

The authors present results of experimental investigations of laser guiding in plasma channels. A new technique for plasma channel creation, the Ignitor-Heater scheme is proposed and experimentally tested in hydrogen and nitrogen. It makes use of two laser pulses. The Ignitor, an ultrashort (< 100 fs) laser pulse, is brought to a line focus using a cylindrical lens to ionize the gas. The Heater pulse (160 ps long) is used subsequently to heat the existing spark via inverse Bremsstrahlung. The hydrodynamic shock expansion creates a partially evacuated plasma channel with a density minimum on axis. Such a channel has properties of an optical waveguide. This technique allows, creation of plasma channels in low atomic number gases, such as hydrogen, which is of importance for guiding of highly intense laser pulses. The channel density was diagnosed with time resolved longitudinal interferometry. From these measurements the plasma temperature was inferred. The guiding properties of the channels were tested by injecting a > 5 {times} 10{sup 17} W/cm{sup 2}, 75 fs laser pulse