Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
The propagation of tightly focused femtosecond laser pulse with numerical aperture of 0.12 in air is investigated experimentally. The formation and evolution of the filament bunch are recorded by time-resolved shadowgraph with laser energy from 2.4 mJ to 47 mJ. The distribution of electron density in breakdown area is retrieved using Nomarski interferometer. It is found that intensity clamping during filamentation effect still play a role even under strong external focusing. The electron density in some interaction zones is higher than 3 × 10(19) cm(-3), which indicates that each air molecule there is ionized.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Liu et al. (2010) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 10 related papers. Consider them for comparative context: