Abstract
Experimental investigations of laser guiding in plasma channels at LBNL are reported. Intense (>2/spl times/10/sup 17/ W/cm/sup 2/), short (60 fs) laser pulses have been injected and guided in slab or cylindrical channels. The channels are produced in H/sub 2/ gas, delivered by a high pressure gas jet, with the dual-pulse Ignitor-Heater technique. Using cylindrical focusing optics, a first ultrashort (<100 fs) laser pulse (Ignitor), is brought to a line focus to ionize the gas jet. A second 160 ps long laser pulse (Heater) is subsequently used to heat the existing spark via inverse bremsstrahlung. The hydrodynamic shock expansion creates a channel. The channel profile is diagnosed with time resolved longitudinal interferometry. The effects of laser beam size and divergence mismatch at the channel entrance and leakage of the laser energy out of the channel are studied in 1D and 2D.
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