Stable, intense supercontinuum light generation at 1 kHz by electric field assisted femtosecond laser filamentation in air

• Published in: Light, science & applications Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 42
• Main Authors: Liu, Yaoxiang, Yin, Fukang, Wang, Tie-Jun, Leng, Yuxin, Li, Ruxin, Xu, Zhizhan, Chin, See Leang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 02.02.2024; Springer Nature B.V; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 140/125; 639/624/400/1119; 639/766/400/1119; Digital cameras; Electric fields; Electrodes; Filamentation; Humidity; Lasers; Light; Microwaves; Optical and Electronic Materials; Optical Devices; Optics; Photonics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Plasma; Repetition; RF and Optical Engineering; Science; Spectroscopy
• ISSN: 2047-7538; 2047-7538
• DOI: 10.1038/s41377-023-01364-3

Supercontinuum (SC) light source has advanced ultrafast laser spectroscopy in condensed matter science, biology, physics, and chemistry. Compared to the frequently used photonic crystal fibers and bulk materials, femtosecond laser filamentation in gases is damage-immune for supercontinuum generation. A bottleneck problem is the strong jitters from filament induced self-heating at kHz repetition rate level. We demonstrated stable kHz supercontinuum generation directly in air with multiple mJ level pulse energy. This was achieved by applying an external DC electric field to the air plasma filament. Beam pointing jitters of the 1 kHz air filament induced SC light were reduced by more than 2 fold. The stabilized high repetition rate laser filament offers the opportunity for stable intense SC generation and its applications in air.