Evolution and termination of a femtosecond laser filament in air

Opt Lett. 2007 Dec 15;32(24):3477-9. doi: 10.1364/ol.32.003477.

Abstract

The evolution of the filamentation of a femtosecond laser pulse in air is measured. The divergence of the filament core is almost constant over a long distance, encompassing a zone with efficient ionization followed by another where ionization is much weaker. At the end, the core diverges out linearly with a low divergence due to self-spatial filtering.