High-energy tunable ultraviolet pulses generated by optical leaky wave in filamentation

TL;DR

This paper theoretically demonstrates a method to generate high-energy, wavelength-tunable ultraviolet pulses using optical leaky wave emission in air-plasma channels, promising advances in ultrafast science and strong-field physics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach for producing high-energy, tunable UV pulses via leaky wave emission in plasma channels, overcoming previous limitations.

Findings

Ultraviolet pulses with wavelengths from 250 nm to 430 nm can be generated.

Output pulse energy reaches up to sub-millijoule levels.

A flat supercontinuum spanning ultraviolet wavelengths is achievable.

Abstract

Ultraviolet pulses could open up new opportunities for the study of strong-field physics and ultrafast science. However, the existing methods for generating ultra-violet pulses face difficulties in fulfilling the twofold requirements of high energy and wavelength tunability simultaneously. Here, we theoretically demonstrate the generation of high-energy and wavelength tunable ultraviolet pulses in preformed air-plasma channels via the leaky wave emission. The output ultraviolet pulse has a tunable wavelength ranging from 250 nm to 430 nm and an energy level up to sub-mJ. An octave-spanning ultraviolet supercontinuum with a flatness better than 3 dB can also be obtained via longitudinally modulated dispersion. Such a high-energy tunable ultraviolet light source may provide promising opportunities for characterization of ultrafast phenomena such as molecular breakup, and also an important driving source for the generation of high-energy attosecond pulses.