Abstract

The recently developed plasma waveguide has achieved one of the major goals in intense laser-matter interaction physics, that of a large intensity - interaction length product.¹ Applications such as highly nonperturbative nonlinear optics and high harmonics generation², soft x-ray laser development³, and laser-driven electron accelerators⁴ would benefit from a large laser-plasma interaction length. Important to all these applications is knowledge of the time and space dependent electron density profile forming the waveguide. We present interferometer measurements of the density development of a laser produced plasma waveguide during its initial formation as well as its later evolution during which a second pulse has been guided over many Rayleigh lengths.

© 1997 Optical Society of America