Guiding of high-intensity laser pulses with a hydrogen-filled capillary discharge waveguide

The first unambiguous demonstration of guiding laser pulses with a peak input intensity above 10¹⁷ W cm^-2 in a H₂-filled capillary discharge waveguide is demonstrated. As such, the pulses are found to be guided with low coupling and propagation losses, and with little spatial or temporal distortion corresponding to 42 times the measured Rayleigh range. It is believed that the simple construction of the H₂-filled capillary discharge waveguide, together with the long device lifetime, is well suited to applications such as laser wakefield acceleration.