Physics Commons^™

Simulation And Analysis Of Ultrafast Laser Pulse Induced Plasma Generation In Dielectric Materials, Jeremy Gulley, Sebastian Winkler, William Dennis

Jeremy R. Gulley

Recent experiments on optical damage by ultrashort laser pulses have demonstrated that the temporal pulseshape can dramatically influence plasma generation in fused silica and sapphire. In this work a modified 3+1D nonlinear Schroedinger equation for the pulse propagation coupled to a rate equation for the plasma density in the dielectric material is used to simulate pulse propagation and plasma formation in a range of dielectric materials. We use these simulations to analyze the influence of pulse-width, pulse-shape and beam geometry on the formation of the electron plasma and hence damage in the bulk material. In particular, when possible, we simulate …