Abstract

Stretching and compressing of laser pulses is demonstrated with a single-grating apparatus. A laser pulse of 110 fs is stretched to 250 ps and then recompressed to 115 fs. The apparatus exploits a two-level structure: one level for stretching and the other for compressing. This single-grating configuration shows significant simplification in structure and alignment over existing multiple-grating systems. Such a stretcher–compressor is particularly suitable for use with chirped-pulse amplification in which laser wavelength tuning is desirable. Only one rotational adjustment is rquired to restore the alignment of the entire stretcher and compressor when the laser wavelength is changed.

© 1994 Optical Society of America

Hybrid grating–prism stretcher–compressor system with cubic phase and wavelength tunability and decreased alignment sensitivity

S. Kane, J. Squier, J. V. Rudd, and G. Mourou
Opt. Lett. 19(22) 1876-1878 (1994)

Chirped-pulse amplification system based on chirp reversal and near-field spatial reversal with common tiled grating pair as stretcher and compressor

Xiao Wang, Xiaofeng Wei, Yao Hu, Xiaoming Zeng, Yanlei Zuo, Xin Hao, Kainan Zhou, Na Xie, and Ying Zhang
Appl. Opt. 51(23) 5627-5632 (2012)

Compact curved-grating stretcher for laser pulse amplification

O. E. Martínez and C. M. González Inchauspe
Opt. Lett. 22(11) 811-813 (1997)

Carrier-envelope phase shift caused by grating-based stretchers and compressors

Zenghu Chang
Appl. Opt. 45(32) 8350-8353 (2006)

High-fidelity, 160 fs, 5 μJ pulses from an integrated Yb-fiber laser system with a fiber stretcher matching a simple grating compressor

A. Fernández, K. Jespersen, L. Zhu, L. Grüner-Nielsen, A. Baltuška, A. Galvanauskas, and A. J. Verhoef
Opt. Lett. 37(5) 927-929 (2012)