Abstract
The results of gas breakdown in argon are presented where breakdown was caused by picosecond pulses from a Nd:YAG laser. Laser pulsewidths were 30, 55, 140 or 270 ps. Using this data with that previously known, a graph of the variation of breakdown threshold with laser pulse duration leads to confirmation that the predicted behaviour of multiphoton ionization processes expected for very short laser pulses is not observed.

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