Carrier field shock formation of long wavelength femtosecond pulses in dispersive media

Abstract: We numerically demonstrate the formation of carrier field shocks in various dispersive media for a wide variety of input conditions using two different electric field propagation models. In addition, an investigation of the impact of numerous physical effects on carrier wave shock is performed. It is shown that in many cases a field shock is essentially unavoidable and therefore extremely important in the propagation of intense long wavelength pulses in weakly dispersive nonlinear media such as noble gases, air, and single-crystal diamond. The results presented here are expected to have a significant impact in the field of ultrashort nonlinear optics, attosecond pulse generation, and wavepacket synthesis where the use of mid-IR wavelengths is becoming increasingly more important.