Abstract: The propagation of intense femtosecond laser in air can lead to a phenomenon of long-distance diffraction-free filamentation, accompanied by the generation of supercontinuum white light laser. The supercontinuum white light laser has the characteristics of broad bandwidth spectrum, high directivity and strong backward scattering radiation, which provides an effective technical way for long-distance atmospheric remote sensing detection, i. e., filament supercontinuum lidar technology. As a unique advantage of lidar, high spatio-temporal resolution is closely related to the continuous progress of ultra-fast laser pulse technology. On the other hand, the important parameters such as repetition rate and pulse width of laser jointly determine the ability of lidar system to achieve high spatiotemporal resolution. The research progress of high-repetition rate intense femtosecond laser filamentation for supercontinuum lidar applications is introduced in this paper, including the characterization of high-repetition rate femtosecond filaments, the generation and modulation of high-repetition rate filament-induced supercontinuum spectrum, and the development of supercontinuum lidar technology. The unique advantages of supercontinuum white light produced by high repetition-rate femtosecond laser pulse in the field of atmospheric remote sensing are summarized and forecasted, and the scientific problems and technical challenges are also pointed out.

Key words: supercontinuum lidar, femtosecond laser filamentation, pulses accumulative effect; atmospheric remote sensing