Filamentation and supercontinuum generation in solid-state dielectric media with picosecond laser pulses

Filamentation and supercontinuum generation with 1.3-ps, 1055-nm laser pulses in YAG crystal is investigated numerically and experimentally. Numerical simulations based on solving the unidirectional nonparaxial propagation equation uncover that the self-focusing dynamics of a picosecond laser pulse markedly differs from that observed in a femtosecond filamentation regime. We show that spatiotemporal transformation of the picosecond pulse is governed by the free electron plasma, which defocuses and absorbs its rear part, resulting in the formation of several subpulses of femtosecond duration, which thereafter undergo peculiar spatiotemporal dynamics and have different contributions to spectral superbroadening. The numerical findings are confirmed experimentally by measuring the spatiotemporal intensity profiles of the wave packet at various stages of propagation where relevant events of the spectral broadening occur.