Isolated waveguide modes of high-intensity light fields

Isolated waveguide modes of intense light fields are unique physical objects, which can never be observed in standard optical fibers, hollow waveguides, plasma filaments, or in the bulk of a transparent dielectric or gas. Hollow photonic-crystal fibers can for the first time produce robust isolated truly guided spatial modes of subgigawatt ultrashort light pulses, perform efficient nonlinear-optical transformations of laser fields in such states, and implement new waveguide regimes of coherent excitation and probing of molecular Raman-active modes in the gas phase. (reviews of topical problems)