Underwater Transmission Characteristics and Regulation of Intense Femtosecond Laser Pulses

doi:10.19596/j.cnki.1001-246x.8829

Abstract

Abstract:

The propagation characteristics of intense femtosecond laser pulses underwater are numerically investigated and modulated by the input energy, lens focal length and beam waist width.The results indicate that, when the system parameters are appropriately selected, the generation of filament can be effectively controlled by the focal length of lens in range of 1 meter to 10 meters underwater, and the filament length reaches the meter scale. With increase of the focal distance (such as f=10 m), the generated plasma filament will oscillate strongly, which is disadvantage to the underwater detection of spectrum. At this time, by increasing the waist width of the beam, the filament can be transmitted more stably at a distant target position underwater. The attenuation effect of the impurities in seawater on pulse energy can be balanced by increasing input power, so as to realize the long-distance transmission of filaments.

Key words: nonlinear optics, intense femtosecond laser, plasma, filament, attenuation coefficient

Zhifang FENG, Lina LIU, Xun LIU, Wei LI, Chengxin YU, Difa YE. Underwater Transmission Characteristics and Regulation of Intense Femtosecond Laser Pulses[J]. Chinese Journal of Computational Physics, 2025, 42(1): 38-46.

Figures/Tables 5

Table 1 Physical parameters in numerical simulation[31]

Magnitude	Symbol/units	Value
Vacuum wavelength	λ₀/nm	800
Linear refractive index	n₀	1.334
Nonlinear index	n₂/(cm²·W^-1)	1.9×10^-16
MPA(Keldysh)	β^(K)/(cm^2K-3·W^1-K)	3.6×10^-50
Group veolcity dispersion	β₂/(fs²·cm^-1)	248
MPA order	$ K=\left\langle\frac{U_{\mathrm{i}}}{\hbar \omega_0}+1\right\rangle$	5
Critical electron density	n_e/cm^-3	1.7×10²¹
Plasma absorption	σ/cm²	6.3×10^-18
Neutral atom density	n_at/cm^-3	6.7×10²²
Ionization potential	U_i/eV	6.5
E-ion collision time	τ_k/fs	3
Speed of light in vacuum	c/(m·s^-1)	3
Vacuum permittivity	ε/(F·m^-1)	8.85×10^-12
Attenuation coefficient	C/m^－1	2.42

Fig.1 Modulation effects of laser input energy and focal length on the filament (a) evolution of peak plasma density (black line represents left coordinate) and peak intensity (red line represents right coordinate) with propagation distance z; (b)maximum value of the peak plasma density and the peak intensity with different input energy and focal length corresponding to (a); (c) evolution of normalized energy with propagation distance z (The black, blue, red, purple, green solid lines represent the input pulse energy of Ein=1, 3, 6, 9, 12 μJ, respectively.)

Fig.2 Temporal distribution of on-axis intensity (W ·cm-2) with propagation distance z

Fig.3 Modulation of optical filament properties and supercontinuum spectrum by waist width and focal length (a)~(f) evolution of peak plasma density and peak intensity with propagation distance z under different beam waist width and focal length, the intensity of the spectra at the initial distance of filament under (g)fixed beam waist width and (h)fixed focal length

Fig.4 Effect of attenuation coefficient on optical filament properties and energy evolution (a)~(j) evolution of peak plasma density and peak intensity with propagation distance z for different attenuation coefficients; evolution of normalized energy with propagation distance z for (k) different focal lengths and (l) different input energies

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