Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 213901 (2008) [4 pages]Temporal Self-Restoration of Compressed Optical FilamentsReceived 7 July 2008; published 17 November 2008 We numerically investigate the propagation of a self-compressed optical filament through a gas-glass-gas interface. Few-cycle light pulses survive a sudden and short order-of-magnitude increase of nonlinearity and dispersion, even when all conservative estimates predict temporal spreading or spatial breakup. Spatiotemporal distortions are shown to self-heal upon further propagation when the pulse refocuses in the second gas. This self-healing mechanism has important implications for pulse compression techniques handled by filamentation and explains the robustness of such sources. © 2008 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.213901
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.213901
PACS:
42.65.Tg, 42.68.Ay, 52.38.Hb
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