Miniature pulse compressor of deep-etched gratings

Appl Opt. 2008 Nov 10;47(32):6058-63. doi: 10.1364/ao.47.006058.

Abstract

We propose a miniature pulse compressor that can be used to compensate the group velocity dispersion that is produced by a commercial femtosecond laser cavity. The compressor is composed of two identical highly efficient deep-etched transmissive gratings. Compared with prism pairs, highly efficient deep-etched transmissive grating pairs are lightweight and small. With an optimized groove depth and a duty cycle, 98% diffraction efficiency of the -1 transmissive order can be achieved at a wavelength of 800 nm under Littrow conditions. The deep-etched gratings are fabricated in fused silica by inductively coupled plasma etching. With a pair of the fabricated gratings, the input positively chirped 73.9 fs pulses are neatly compressed into the nearly Fourier transform-limited 43.2 fs pulses. The miniature deep-etched grating-based pulse compressor should be of interest for practical applications.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Equipment Design
  • Lasers
  • Normal Distribution
  • Optics and Photonics*
  • Photons
  • Physics / methods
  • Time Factors