Controlling Femtosecond Laser Filaments via Quasi-Hermite Gaussian Beam Modes

N. Kayaa, G. Kayab, A. Kolomenskic, H. Schuesslerc aDepartment of Material Science and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, TR-17100 Çanakkale, Turkey bDepartment of Electric and Energy, Canakkale Vocational School of Technical Sciences, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, TR-17100 Çanakkale, Turkey cDepartment of Physics & Astronomy, Faculty of Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843-4242, USA

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We present the possibilities of controlling and organizing femtosecond laser filaments and white-light formation via generating quasi-Hermite Gaussian beam modes in water. The quasi-Hermite Gaussian modes are created as transverse structures with different intensity and phase distributions by modulating the spatial phase front in the incident Gaussian beam. We have created phase masks on a spatial light modulator to produce desired beam profiles such as quasi-Hermite Gaussian beam modes. By creating the quasi-Hermite Gaussian beam modes from the incident Gaussian mode, we have shown that multiple filaments and white-light generation patterns can be controlled and organized depending on the created beam mode profile. Since only one initial beam was employed, the beam and the created side patterns were mutually coherent, which enables their use for pump-probe spectroscopy and other experiments requiring mutual coherence of the beams employed.

DOI:10.12693/APhysPolA.141.204 topics: filamentation, beam modes, nonlinear optics