Modeling of Sommerfeld surface waves propagating on a single wire of laser plasma filaments

Abstract

We investigated the possibility of Sommerfeld surface waves to propagate along a conducting plasma channel produced by the filamentation of ultrafast laser pulses in air. Using the approximation of a homogenous cylindrical wire of laser plasma filaments, the phase velocity and the propagation loss of different wire configurations are calculated. The phase velocity of the propagating wave proved to be close to the speed of laser pulses, which makes attaching to such instantaneous plasma channel feasible over distances in the order of the filament length. Wire diameter, electron density and operating frequency are appearing to influence the attaching distances and propagation loss. The attenuation of the propagating wave along the plasma wire appears to be lower than that of free space over some distances in the order of the filamentation length, which opens exciting perspectives for short distance point to point wireless transmission of pulsed-modulated microwaves. ©Springer-Verlag 2012.