cw Self-Focusing and Self-Trapping of Light in Sodium Vapor

We report steady-state self-focusing, self-trapping, and self-defocusing of a cw dye laser beam in sodium vapor for frequencies within several Doppler widths of the $D$-line resonance transitions. We measured the variation of the beam profile as the light propagates through the vapor. We observed a 20-mW beam self-trapped in a 12-cm-long filament having a half-power diameter of 70 μm.