Energy deposition dynamics of femtosecond pulses in water
  We exploit inverse Raman scattering and solvated electron absorption to perform a quantitative characterization of the energy loss and ionization dynamics in water with tightly focused near-infrared femtosecond pulses. A comparison between experimental data and numerical simulations suggests that the ionization energy of water is 8 eV, rather than the commonly used value of 6.5 eV. We also introduce an equation for the Raman gain valid for ultra-short pulses that validates our experimental procedure. 
Stefano Minardi, Carles Mili\'an, Donatas Majus, Amrutha Gopal,   Gintaras Tamo\v{s}auskas, Arnaud Couairon, Thomas Pertsch,...
physics.optics