Enhanced focusing of laser beams in semiconductor plasmas

The beating of two copropagating laser beams (having frequency difference Delta omega approximate to omega(p), where omega(p) is the plasma frequency) can resonantly excite a large amplitude plasma wave in a narrow-gap semiconductor [V. I. Berezhiani and S. M. Mahajan, Phys. Rev. B 55, 9247 (1997)]. The higher ponderomotive force on the electrons due to the plasma beat wave makes the medium highly nonlinear. As a result, the incident laser beams become self-focused due to the nonlinearity by the ponderomotive force. In this paper, we show the self-focusing and spot size evolution of the laser beams in semiconductor plasmas.