Tailoring the filamentation of intense femtosecond laser pulses with periodic lattices

We show numerically that by using periodic lattices the filamentation of intense femtosecond laser pulses, otherwise a result of competing nonlinear effects, can be well controlled with respect to its properties. The diffraction induced by the lattice provides a regularizing mechanism to the nonlinear self-action effects involved in filamentation. We demonstrate a new propagation regime of intense lattice solitons bridging the field of spatial solitons with that of femtosecond laser filamentation. The effective filamentation control is expected to have an important impact on numerous applications.