Generation of electromagnetic pulses from plasma channels induced by femtosecond light strings

  • 4 December 2000
Abstract
We present a model that elucidates the physics underlying the generation of an electromagnetic pulse from a plasma channel resulting from the ionization of air by a femtosecond laser pulse. By a new mechanism analogous to nonlinear optical rectification, the laser pulse induces a dipole moment in the plasma which subsequently oscillates at the plasma frequency and radiates an electromagnetic pulse with a peak frequency within the far-infrared to microwave region, depending on the electron density, with a bandwidth around hundreds of gigahertz.

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