Issues Relating to the Arrest of Critical Collapse of Femtosecond Pulses in
Normally Dispersive Self-focusing Media
Jerry Moloney, Tucson
Femtosecond optical light pulses offer a unique opportunity to explore the
physical manifestations of 2D and 3D collapse phenomena in transparent
nonlinear optical media. We will report on the mechanism of arrest of
critical collapse due to normal group velocity dispersion and plasma
shielding, resulting from laser induced breakdown. The latter arises from
avalanche processes for picosecond duration optical pulses and multiphoton
ionisation for femtosecond duration pulses. Primary results from a 3D + time
vector Maxwell numerical solution in the vicinity of the critical self-focus
will be discussed.
-->List of Abstracts