A Plasma Micro-Lens and Corrugated Capillary for Ultra Short High Power Lasers


  Yiftach Katzir  
Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University

We present a technique for generation of miniature plasma lens system that can be used for focusing and collimating a high intensity femtosecond laser pulse into a corrugated capillary.   The plasma lens was created by a nanosecond laser, which ablated a capillary entrance.  The spatial configuration of the ablated plasma focused a high intensity femtosecond laser pulse.  This configuration offers versatility in the plasma lens small f-number for extremely tight focusing of high power lasers with no damage threshold restrictions of regular optical components. Propagation through corrugated discharge capillaries fulilled phase matching conditions for high harmonic generation and guiding condtions for the high intensity laser pulse.