Laser Guiding of Consecutive Meter-Scale Discharges in Air

Femtosecond laser filamentation in air creates long columns of weakly ionized plasma that result in a low-density channel over μs timescale [1]. These channels can trigger and guide electric discharges [2]–[3]. Applications have been proposed for this effect, such as the laser lightning rod [4], or the plasma antenna [5]. The main limitation for the later one is the discharge lifetime limited to microseconds [6], since a plasma antenna would require the existence of a permanent conductive channel. To overcome this limitation, we investigate a regime using consecutive guided discharges with prolonged lifetime that could create a quasi-permanent conductive channel.