Filamentation of Femtosecond Laser Airy Beams in Water

We report experiments on the propagation of intense, femtosecond, self-bending Airy laser beams in water. The supercontinuum radiation generated along the curved beam path is angularly resolved in the far field. Spectral maps of this radiation reveal the changing character of the laser-pulse evolution on propagation.

Figure 1

Schematic of the experiment. The dominant lobe of the Airy beam pattern travels along a parabolic trajectory, as illustrated by the series of three intensity patterns in the bottom part of the figure.

Figure 2

Photographs of the forward emission patterns by bent filament. The insets illustrate how the emission originating from different sections of the filament is isolated from the rest of the emission. (a) Complete emission pattern. (b) Emission pattern from the beginning section of the filament. (c) Emission pattern from the end section of the filament.

Figure 3

$\theta \mathrm{\text{−}}\lambda$ spectral maps of the forward supercontinuum emission. (a) Complete emission pattern. (b) Emission from the beginning section of the filament. (c) Emission from the end section of the filament. In figures (b) and (c), the best-fit curves based on the effective three-wave mixing approach are shown with light blue and orange solid lines. Same best-fit curves are also shown in the complete pattern (a).