Triggering and guiding high-voltage discharge in air by single and multiple femtosecond filaments

The abilities to trigger and guide high-voltage discharge by using single and multiple filaments (MFs) are experimentally studied. It is shown that the discharge voltage threshold can be reduced significantly in both regimes of single and MF; however, the MF does not gain a larger reduction than a single filament. This behavior of the MF is attributed to the single discharge path rather than simultaneous multiple ones as one might expect during the discharge process. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America