Determination of temporal structure of femtosecond laser pulses by means of the laser-induced air plasma

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/22/5/054209

Abstract A new approach is presented to reveal the temporal structure of femtosecond laser pulses by recording the corresponding time-resolved shadowgraphs of the laser-induced air plasma. It is shown that the temporal structures of femtosecond laser pulses, normally not observable by the ordinary intensity autocorrelator, can be detected through intuitively analyzing the ultrafast evolution process of the air plasma induced by the femtosecond laser pulses under examination. With this method, existence of pre- and post-pulses has been clearly unveiled within the time window of ± 150 fs in reference with the main 50-fs laser pulses output from a commercial 1-kHz femtosecond laser amplifier. The unique advantage of the proposed method is that it can directly provide valuable information about the pulse temporal structures' effect on the laser-induced ionization or material ablation.

Keywords: pulse temporal structure femtosecond laser pulse air plasma pump-probe technique

Received: 22 August 2012
Revised: 17 October 2012
Accepted manuscript online:

PACS:	42.65.Re	(Ultrafast processes; optical pulse generation and pulse compression)
	32.80.-t	(Photoionization and excitation)
	52.50.Jm	(Plasma production and heating by laser beams (laser-foil, laser-cluster, etc.))

Fund: Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11004111 and 61137001), the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin City, China (Grant No. 10JCZDGX35100), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Grant No. 20100031120034), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China.

Corresponding Authors: Zhu Xiao-Nong
E-mail: xnzhu1@nankai.edu.cn

Cite this article:

Zhang Nan (张楠), Bao Wen-Xia (包文霞), Yang Jing-Hui (杨景辉), Zhu Xiao-Nong (朱晓农) Determination of temporal structure of femtosecond laser pulses by means of the laser-induced air plasma 2013 Chin. Phys. B 22 054209

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Determination of temporal structure of femtosecond laser pulses by means of the laser-induced air plasma

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