Abstract

Self-focusing and filamentation of ultrashort mid-infrared laser pulses, whose wavelengths fall in the anomalous group velocity dispersion range of dielectric media, produces supercontinuum radiation with unprecedented spectral coverage [1,2]. Under such conditions, a qualitatively new filamentation regime is accessed, where simultaneous compression in space and time leads to formation of quasi-stationary self-compressed objects: spatiotemporal light bullets [3]. More recently, a different mechanism of the spectral broadening was uncovered for the input intensities of few TW/cm², as due to plasma-induced compression of the driving pulse that leads to odd harmonics-enhanced supercontinuum generation [4].

© 2017 IEEE