Lasing action in water vapor induced by ultrashort laser filamentation

The water vapor fluorescence in air from filaments generated by intense ultrashort Ti:sapphire laser pulses is experimentally studied. The backscattered fluorescence from OH shows an exponential increase with increasing filament length, indicating amplified spontaneous emission. By measuring the intensity inside the filament and the fluorescence intensity of OH, a high degree of nonlinearity is obtained, indicating a highly nonlinear field dissociation of H2O molecule.