Impact-ionization cooling in laser-induced plasma filaments.

The ionization rates and subsequent electron dynamics for laser-induced plasma channels are measured for the noble gas series He, Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe at 1.0 atm. The cw fluorescence emission increases superlinearly in the series from He to Xe in agreement with Ammosov-Delone-Krainov tunnel ionization calculations. The electron temperature after laser-induced plasma formation, measured by four-wave mixing, evolves from >20 eV to <1 eV kinetic energies with time constants ranging from 1 ns for He to 100 ps for Xe in agreement with an impact-ionization cooling model.